Individually Owned: 150,657
Corporate Owned: 137,281
Aircraft Accident/Incident Report
Moab, Utah 84532
Thursday, May 23, 2002 19:25 MDT
NTSB Narrative Summary Released at Completion of Accident
According to the pilot, he started the day with approximately 50 gallons of fuel on board. He departed from his home base, for a 10 minute flight to pick up several passengers, taking groups of them on 5 to 10 minute photo flights, for a total mission duration of approximately 80 to 90 minutes. After dropping off the last group, he returned to his home base. According to the fuel gauge, there was approximately 12 to 13 gallons of fuel remaining when he departed for the 10 minute repositioning flight back to his home base. Based on a fuel burn rate of approximately 25 gallons per hour, he calculated that he had 30 minutes of fuel remaining. He also stated that, due to noise abatement, he always approached his helipad at a "high airspeed and with a fast rate of descent and then about 100 feet, power up to make a high power, steep landing." Being "low on fuel," he did the same thing on this approach, starting his descent at approximately 80 to 100 knots. At 50 to 75 feet above ground level (agl), he initiated a 10 to 20 degree flare and began the descent to land. The fuel boost pump light illuminated, the "auto-relight" light came on, and the "engine out" light illuminated. His first thought was that he "ran the aircraft out of fuel." He realized that he was going too fast to land at his helipad. He adjusted his approach, and attempted to land in a parking lot just beyond his pad. He applied forward cyclic control, to level out the helicopter, hoping the boost pump light would go out and that the "auto relight" would reignite the fuel if it started pumping. The helicopter struck the ground hard with its right landing gear skid, bounced, slid forward approximately 15 feet, turned to its left approximately 90 degrees and slowly rolled over on its right side. The aircraft continued to turn to the left another 90 degrees and came to rest on its right side, facing 180 degrees from the direction of the approach. During the hard landing, the main rotor blades struck the tail boom, separating the vertical stabilizer, tail rotor and tail rotor gearbox. The main rotor hub and blade assembly was intact and remained attached to the main rotor mast.
NTSB Probable Cause Narrative
The pilot's failure to maintain rotor rpm during a forced landing. A contributing factor was fuel starvation.
Event Information
| Type of Event | Accident |
| Event Date | 5/23/2002 |
| Event Day of the Week | Thursday |
| Time of Event | 1925 |
| Event Time Zone | Mountain Daylight Time |
| Event City | Moab |
| Event State | UTAH |
| Event Country | -- |
| Zipcode of the event site | 84532 |
| Event Date Year | 2002 |
| Event Date Month | 5 |
| MidAir Collision Indicator | No |
| On Ground Collision occurred ? | No |
| Event Location Latitude | -- |
| Event Location Longitude | -- |
| Event Location Airport | -- |
| Event Location Nearest Airport ID | -- |
| Indicates whether the acc/inc occurred off or on an airport | Off Airport/Airstrip |
| Distance from airport in statute miles | -- |
| Degrees magnetic from airport | -- |
| Airport Elevation | -- |
| Weather Briefing Completeness | Unknown |
| Investigator's weather source | Weather Observation Facility |
| Time of the weather observation | 1953 Mountain Daylight Time |
| Direction of event from weather observation facility (degrees) | -- |
| Weather Observation Facility ID | CNY |
| Elevation of weather observation facility | 5000 |
| Distance of event from weather observation facility (units?) | -- |
| Time Zone of the weather observation | MDT |
| Lighting Conditions | Day |
| Lowest Ceiling Height | -- |
| Lowest Non-Ceiling Height | -- |
| Sky/Lowest/Cloud Conditions | Clear |
| Sky Condition for Lowest Ceiling | None |
| Visibility Runway Visual Range (Feet) | -- |
| Visibility Runway Visual Value (Statute Miles) | -- |
| Visibility (Statute Miles) | 10 |
| Air Temperature at event time (in degrees celsius) | 17 |
| Dew Point at event time (in degress fahrenheit) | -9 |
| Wind Direction (degrees magnetic) | 300 |
| Variable Wind Indicator | Wind direction could be determined |
| Wind Speed (knots) | 11 |
| Wind Velocity Indicator | -- |
| Wind Gust Indicator | Gusting |
| Wind Gust (knots) | 0 |
| Altimeter Setting at event time (in. Hg) | 29.91 |
| Density Altitude (feet) | 6422 |
| Intensity of Precipitation | -- |
| METAR weather report | -- |
| Event Highest Injury | None |
| On Ground, Fatal Injuries | -- |
| On Ground, Minor Injuries | -- |
| On Ground, Serious Injuries | -- |
| Injury Total Fatal | -- |
| Injury Total Minor | -- |
| Injury Total None | 1 |
| Injury Total Serious | -- |
| Injury Total All | -- |
| Investigating Agency | NTSB |
| NTSB Docket Number (internal use) | 12974 |
| NTSB Notification Source | FAA COMM CTR |
| NTSB Notification Date | -- |
| NTSB Notification Time | -- |
| Fiche Number and/or location -used to find docket information | DMS |
| Date of most recent change to record | Apr 15 2003 4:06PM |
| User who most recently changed record | NTSB\MONR |
| Basic weather conditions | Visual Meteorological Cond |
| FAA District Office | Salt Lake City FSDO |
Aircraft Involved |
|
|---|---|
Aircraft #1 |
|
| Aircraft Registration Number | N191RH |
| NTSB Number | DEN02LA046 |
| Missing Aircraft Indicator | -- |
| Federal Aviation Reg. Part | Part 91: General Aviation |
| Type of Flight Plan filed | None |
| Flight plan Was Activated? | No |
| Damage | Substantial |
| Aircraft Fire | None |
| Aircraft Explosion | None |
| Aircraft Manufacturer's Full Name | Bell |
| Aircraft Model | 206B-III |
| Aircraft Series Identifier | -- |
| Aircraft Serial Number | 3177 |
| Certified Max Gross Weight | 3200 |
| Aircraft Category | Helicopter |
| Aircraft Registration Class | U.S. Registered/U.S. Soil |
| Aircraft is a homebuilt? | No |
| Flight Crew Seats | -- |
| Cabin Crew Seats | -- |
| Passenger Seats | -- |
| Total number of seats on the aircraft | 5 |
| Number of Engines | 1 |
| Fixed gear or retractable gear | Fixed |
| Aircraft, Type of Last Inspection | Annual |
| Date of Last Inspection | May 2 2002 12:00AM |
| Airframe hours since last inspection | 37.4 |
| Airframe Hours | 4798.7 |
| ELT Installed | Yes |
| ELT Activated | No |
| ELT Aided Location of Event Site | No |
| ELT Type | -- |
| Aircraft Owner Name | Shier Aviation Corp |
| Aircraft Owner Street Address | 3753 John J Montgomery Dr. |
| Aircraft Owner City | San Diego |
| Aircraft Owner State | CA |
| Aircraft Owner Country | USA |
| Aircraft Owner Zipcode | 92123 |
| Operator is an individual? | No |
| Operator Name | -- |
| Operator Same as Owner? | Yes |
| Operator Is Doing Business As | -- |
| Operator Address Same as Owner? | Yes |
| Operator Street Address | -- |
| Operator City | -- |
| Operator State | -- |
| Operator Country | -- |
| Operator Zip code | -- |
| Operator Code | -- |
| Owner has at least one certificate | None |
| Other Operator of large aircraft? | -- |
| Certified for Part 133 or 137 Operation | -- |
| Operator Certificate Number | -- |
| Indicates whether an air carrier operation was scheduled or not | -- |
| Indicates Domestic or International Flight | -- |
| Operator carrying Pax/Cargo/Mail | -- |
| Type of Flying (Per_Bus / Primary) | Positioning |
| Second Pilot on Board | No |
| Departure Point Same as Event | No |
| Departure Airport Code | -- |
| Departure City | Harely B Ranch |
| Departure State | UT |
| Departure Country | USA |
| Departure Time | 1915 |
| Departure Time Zone | MST |
| Destination Same as Local Flt | crash at destination city |
| Destination Airport Code | -- |
| Destination City | Moab |
| Destination State | UT |
| Destination Country | USA |
| Specific Phase of Flight | Landing |
| Report sent to ICAO? | No |
| Evacuation occurred | No |
| Date of most recent change to record | Jan 7 2003 11:17AM |
| User who most recently changed record | MCBM |
| Since inspection or accident | Time of Accident |
| Event Location Runway Number and Location | -- |
| Runway Length | -- |
| Runway Width | -- |
| Sight Seeing flight | No |
| Air Medical Flight | No |
| Medical Flight | -- |