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his house, and he estimated it came within 200 ft. before quickly climbing up and over the power lines bor- dering his street. By the time he turned to track the heli- copter’s progress, it had disappeared behind a stand of trees. The time, he said, was somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00 pm. Between 12:15 and 12:20, a fixed-wing student pilot


and instructor returning to KGTU heard a “desperate” string of profanity transmitted over the KGTU tower fre- quency. The instructor guessed it lasted about 2 sec- onds. No such transmission was captured on the tower’s audio recordings. At 12:25, the operator was notified that the helicop-


ter’s emergency locator transmitter (ELT) signal had been detected emanating from a location east of Georgetown. Temple Fire & Rescue and the Georgetown tower were unable to reach the aircraft, so the COO flew the company’s AS350 FX to the reported ELT coordi- nates. He found the wreckage in a cotton field about 4 miles east of the witness’s house. State troopers were already on the scene.


The Investigation Data from an FAA air route surveillance radar installation 30 miles northeast of Georgetown detected a target departing the vicinity of KGTU eastbound at 12:09 climb- ing to about 500 ft. agl. Four minutes later, 9 miles east of the airport, it descended to 50 ft. and continued east- bound over unpopulated areas at about 90 kt. ground speed and altitudes of between 0 and 120 ft. At 12:15:26, the aircraft approached the witness’s house at 25 ft. agl, coming within 700 ft., then climbed to 125 ft. as it passed. The last radar contact came at 12:17:14 about 1 mile west of the accident site at an alti- tude of 58 ft. The main wreckage was found at the end of a 100-ft.


debris field (see image, opposite) that began with “five matching 2-ft.-long excavations that were equally spaced throughout a length of about 40 ft.” Fragments of yellow paint in the ground matched that on the tips of the five main rotor blades. Skid fragments, pieces of wind- screen, parts of a main rotor blade, and items from inside the cabin led eastward to the fuselage, which was largely consumed by fire. The tail cone and tail rotor were 20 ft. farther east. The west side of the field was bordered by a two-


wire power line running north–south between 36-ft.-high poles. Both wires were severed at a point between two stands of trees about 950 ft. west of the main wreckage. Fragments of the aircraft’s red belly strobe were found 100 ft. east of the break.


The southern end of the stranded steel overhead line had been pulled loose from the next three poles, all of which were bent toward the crash site. Some 1,300 ft. of unbroken cable ran from the wreckage to the fourth pole to the south. Investigators determined that the helicopter passed


between two clumps of trees that obscured the power poles from the pilots’ view. The distance from the point of impact to the helicopter’s final resting place indicated it was flying at high speed. The probable cause of the accident was “the failure of both pilots to see and avoid a power line while maneuvering at low altitude. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s decision to not follow the train- ing syllabus and allow the low-level, high-speed flight.”


The Takeaway


It seems nearly impossible to reconcile the circum- stances of the accident with the instructor’s reputation for professionalism and discipline. At the same time, the combined radar, witness, and physical evidence are indisputable. The COO, who also was an instructor in the Jordanian training program, told investigators that “flying low-level, nap-of-the-earth, gun runs or similar during training are considered serious transgressions.” He wasn’t aware of the accident instructor ever hav- ing conducted such runs, adding that because he flew exclusively for the training program, he was unfamiliar with the low-level hazards in the area. He also noted that the younger, second-lieutenant trainees often wanted to fly low, while the first lieutenants “are a little more responsible.” The accident flight was nominally a SATMO local ori-


entation flight. Since the trainee had completed the same course a year earlier, he may have retained some familiarity with the area.


In its probable-cause report, the NTSB speculated that the instructor’s decision to “perform, or allow the pilot under instruction to perform,” the low-level, high- speed flight might have been attributable to a desire “to simulate their working environment, make the flight more interesting or engaging, push limits, or impress each other.” This assessment, too, seems hard to accept, given


that the two men weren’t thought to have been close friends or known to have socialized with each other. But something led them to fly at least one unauthorized low-altitude maneuver ... and while they might have intended that maneuver to be brief, its end was all too final.


SEPTEMBER 2021 ROTOR 65


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