N711BE

HISTORY OF FLIGHTOn November 18, 2015, at 1623 Pacific standard time, an Airbus Helicopters AS350B3E, N711BE, departed controlled flight while landing on a dolly at Mc Clellan-Palomar Airport, Carlsbad, California. The private pilot and the pilot-rated passenger were fatally injured; the helicopter sustained substantial damage. The pilot, who was the owner, was operating the helicopter under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. The local personal flight departed Carlsbad at 1412. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan had been filed.

The purpose of the flight was for the pilot to gain familiarity with the helicopter, which he had recently purchased. The entire accident sequence was captured on a series of airport security cameras and the mobile phone cameras of multiple witnesses.

About 2 hours before the accident, the helicopter departed from its dolly on the east end of the Premier Jet fixed base operator (FBO) ramp, which was located midfield on the south side of runway 6/24. After departure, line crew moved the dolly to the west end of the ramp.

Upon returning, the helicopter approached the airport from the northeast and was cleared to land on runway 24. It descended to midfield, turned left at taxiway A3, and approached the ramp in a low hover via the parallel taxiway A. The helicopter then began an approach to the dolly from the east, directly toward the sun. The helicopter landed short of, and partially on, the dolly with the center of its skids contacting the dolly's aft edge. The helicopter immediately rocked back, pitching nose up, and its tailskid struck the ground. The helicopter then began a series of fore and aft oscillations, and the dolly broke free from its front left chock, rotated to the right, and pivoted around its rear right wheel. The helicopter spun rapidly with the dolly for the first quarter of the turn and then quickly spiraled upward 270° to the right. The dolly came to rest to the north, having rotated 180°. The pilot repositioned the helicopter and landed it on the ground, straddling the ramp and taxiway A. Just before landing, the pilot was queried by the air traffic control tower controller and responded, "yeah, they didn't chock my cart, and I was like a skateboard out here," The tower controller then requested that the pilot switch to the ground control frequency.

During the next 2 1/2 minutes, the line crew re-secured the dolly, installing chocks on three of the four wheels. The pilot then took off and climbed the helicopter to about 20 ft while it yawed to the left, and he repositioned it for an approach to the dolly now from the west. During the next 4 1/2 minutes, the pilot made three landing attempts, getting the helicopter to within about 5 ft vertically of the dolly on the first two attempts. After the first attempt, the pilot repositioned the helicopter by circling back around the dolly. After the second attempt, the pilot performed a hovering climb and backed the helicopter into position. A video of the third and final landing attempt was captured by a witness, who was located about 130 ft to the south. The witness was initially watching the helicopter from his airplane on the ramp, but he was concerned that the helicopter might crash, so he exited the airplane and positioned himself behind a car at the corner of the FBO's hangar.

The video revealed that the helicopter hovered over the dolly for about 60 seconds and then landed short, teetering on the aft edge of the dolly (Image 1). The tailskid almost struck the ground, and the helicopter then rapidly pitched forward (Image 2) and then aft again. The tailskid then struck the ground (Image 3), and the helicopter pitched forward, rolled right (Images 4 and 5), and climbed out of view behind the hangar. Security cameras revealed that the helicopter then spun 180° to the left, and the nose pitched up to a 45° attitude. The tail rotor and vertical stabilizer assembly then struck the ground and separated, and the helicopter hit the ground left side low, bounced, and rotated another 360° before landing hard on its belly. Once on the ground, the main rotor blades continued to spin, while the helicopter started spinning on its belly, as the engine continued to operate (Image 6).

The helicopter continued spinning at a rate of about one revolution per second for the next 5 minutes while incrementally sliding about 530 ft east along the ramp. The tailboom and horizontal stabilizer then separated, and the helicopter rolled onto its side, shedding the main rotor blades. The engine continued operating for another 30 seconds while the fire crew doused the helicopter. White smoke billowed from the engine's exhaust after the helicopter came to rest, but there was no fire.

Image 1 - Helicopter Landing Short of the Dolly

Image 2 - Helicopter Landing Short of the Dolly

Image 3 - Helicopter Tail Striking the Ground

Image 4 - Helicopter Rolling Right over the Dolly

Image 5 - Helicopter Spinning 180 degrees, with Tail Striking the Ground

Image 6 - Helicopter Spinning after Ground Collision PERSONNEL INFORMATIONThe pilot was seated in the front right seat, and the pilot-rated passenger was seated in the front left seat.

Pilot

The pilot held a private pilot certificate with ratings for airplane single-engine land and sea, multiengine land, instrument airplane, and rotorcraft-helicopter. He also held a type rating for the Cessna Citation Jet (CE-525S).

The pilot held a third-class medical certificate issued on January 19, 2015, with the limitation that he must have available glasses for near vision.

No personal flight records were located for the pilot. At the time of his last medical application, he reported a total flight time of 25,000 hours, with 200 hours logged in the last 6 months. The pilot reported the same numbers on three other applications over the 5-year period preceding the accident, and 25,400 hours total time on his application dated January 18, 2011. His helicopter rating was issued in May 2001, at which time he reported on his rating application a total flight time of 14,000 hours in airplanes.

The pilot had previously owned and flown a Cessna Citation business jet airplane and a Bell 407 helicopter. His 2001 helicopter checkride flight took place in a Bell 206B3. At the time of the accident, he was receiving recurrent training for the Citation, with the most recent flight 2 days before the accident. The pilot purchased the accident helicopter on October 29, 2015, and had flown demonstration and familiarization flights in it since September 20. According to the helicopter's flight logs, those flights totaled about 8.8 hours and were all conducted with a flight instructor present. The pilot then flew the helicopter with another instructor for an additional 2 hours on November 13.

According to the two instructors who had flown with the pilot for the familiarization flights and the flight instructor who provided training in the Citation, the accident flight was the first time the pilot had flown in an AS350 without an instructor present. All had recommended that the pilot gain further instruction before flying without an instructor, and the pilot had concurred.

The three instructors shared similar insights into the pilot's flying skills, reporting that, while he appeared to have extensive flying experience, he was anxious about the handling characteristics of the AS350 compared to the Bell 407, particularly during landing. The pilot said that he was having difficulty anticipating flight control forces because the helicopter controls felt "backwards" due to the opposing rotor direction of the AS350 compared to the Bell 407. Furthermore, he was having trouble landing on the dolly partly because the tips of the skids were just behind his seating location in the AS350, as opposed to the Bell 407, where he could see the skids just forward and below. Both helicopter instructors reported performing multiple dolly and simulated dolly landings with the pilot, stating that, although the pilot was not completely at ease, he was able to ultimately land on the dolly unaided. The pilot told the Citation instructor that, although he had practiced many landings in the helicopter, he still did not feel proficient and thought that the helicopter was very unstable close to the ground, especially when it was close to the dolly.

One of the helicopter instructors reported that the pilot wanted to enable the helicopter's stability augmentation system (SAS) for landings because he had been told it would help his landings. The instructor stated that he wanted the pilot to be able to fly the helicopter proficiently without the use of the SAS. However, for demonstration purposes, they did two landings with the SAS enabled. During those attempts, the pilot appeared to be "fighting" against the SAS control inputs, with unsatisfactory results, and he did not understand how to use the SAS release button on the cyclic to override the SAS control inputs. Therefore, the pilot and instructor decided to turn the system off.

Both helicopter instructors reported that the pilot appeared to have suffered an injury that restricted movement of his left arm. He could use his left arm to operate the flight controls and reach the lower sections of the flight panel, but he could not reach the upper controls, including the engine start selector panel, without the supportive aid of his right arm. One instructor stated that because of the injury, the pilot was unable to climb up onto the helicopter to perform preflight examinations of the rotor head. One helicopter instructor and the Citation instructor stated that the pilot's hands often shook and that it was particularly obvious when he held a pen, although once he grasped the flight controls the shaking stopped.

Both helicopter instructors suggested that the pilot take formal factory-approved flight training, and one instructor stat...