Bell 47G N5990 accident near Denton, Texas

Probable cause

The flight instructor's improper decision to instruct the student pilot to establish a hover and reposition the helicopter with a tailwind, which resulted in the student pilot's loss of pitch control.

NTSB analysis

The student pilot reported that he hovered the helicopter to the parking pad and landed with the helicopter's nose facing north. The skid placement on the parking pad was incorrect, and the flight instructor directed the student to reposition the helicopter about 3 ft to the left. The student brought the helicopter to a hover and repositioned it 3 ft to the left.

However, before the student established a descent and landed, the helicopter encountered a tailwind gust. The nose pitched down, the rotor rpm decreased, and the helicopter traveled about 75 ft forward. The skids contacted the ground hard, and the helicopter came to an abrupt stop, upright and facing downslope. The main rotor blades struck the tail rotor drive shaft and the tailboom. The tail rotor gear box and the tail rotor separated from the helicopter.

The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the tail rotor drive system, the tailboom, and the main rotor blades.

The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.

The airport's METAR reported that, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 180° at 15 knots and that the cloud layer was broken at 800 ft.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for GAA19CA250 for the full record.