- Date
- June 11, 1983, 11:50 local (19:50 UTC)
- Place
- Zillah, WA
- Injuries
- 1 uninjured
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Phase of flight
- Enroute
- Aircraft
- N41721Bell 47G-2
- Weather
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Status
- Completed
- Report
- Approved by Office Director
- FAA report
- 19830611024879A
- Case key
- 39709
From the NTSB’s public API. By law, NTSB reports can’t be used as evidence in lawsuits over the accident.
On this page
Sequence of events
NTSB’s coding before 2008: each occurrence and phase of flight, and the causes and factors under it. The codes are defined in NTSB’s coding manual.
Analysis
The rotorcraft made a hard landing after colliding with trees during an autorotation. The acft had experienced an enginefailure while on a repositioning flight between aerial application operations and was forced to land. The acft was autorotated into an orchard and contacted trees, sustaining subtantial damage to the skids, main rotor blades and tail boom. The pilot was uninjured. The flight originated from a temporary site a few minutes before the mishap. Investigation revealed the power loss was due to fuel exhaustion. The fuel cells were empty but the fuel gauges showed fuel remaining. The acft was fueled with 22 gallons of fuel. The gauges read one quarter-left,one half-right. The system was drained empty. The gauges read one eighth-left,one quarter-right.
Aircraft
- Registration
- N41721
- Reported as
- Bell 47G-2
- Category
- Helicopter
- Serial number
- 815
- Airframe hours
- 7,065
- Engine
- Lycoming VO-435, 260 horsepower, reciprocating
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Flight
- Aerial application · Part 137
- Registered owner
- Valicopters, Inc.
- Airworthiness certificate
- Special, Restricted (Special)
- Last inspection
- 100 hour · June 10, 1983 · 8 hours before
- Departed
- Zillah, WA
- Destination
- Wapato, WA
- Flight plan
- Company VFR
Matched to the registry by N-number and the event date; the registry’s history has gaps, so older matches can be wrong. Compare the reported make and model.
Flight crew
As NTSB recorded them. NTSB leaves out names.
- Role
- Pilot
- Age
- 36
- Certificate
- Commercial
- Airplane ratings
- Single-engine land, Multi-engine land
- Instrument ratings
- Helicopter
- Medical
- Class 2, Valid Medical--no waivers/lim.
- Seat
- Right
- Flight hours
- 4,372 total · 1,220 in this make and model · 4,040 as pilot in command · 202 in the last 90 days · 125 in the last 30 days · 4 in the last 24 hours
Weather
- Conditions
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Wind
- 210° at 5 knots
- Visibility
- 50 statute miles
- Lowest ceiling
- None
- Temperature
- 64 °F, dew point 37 °F
- Altimeter
- 29.00 inHg
- Observed at
- YKM, 13 nm away
FAA reports on this event · 1
The FAA’s own accident and incident reports, matched to the aircraft by N-number and date.
Other investigations on N41721 · 2
Matched to the same aircraft by N-number and date.