Quite the accident....

A-aron · April 8, 2015

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=20140923X41257&key=1

14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation

Accident occurred Friday, September 19, 2014 in Cahokia, IL

Aircraft: ROBINSON HELICOPTER R22 BETA, registration: N115DD

Injuries: 1 Uninjured.

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators may not have traveled in support of this investigation and used data provided by various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.

On September 19, 2014, at 1030 central daylight time, N115DD, a Robinson R-22 Beta helicopter, landed hard during a forced landing near the St.Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia, Illinois. The commercial rated pilot was not injured. The helicopter was registered to a private corporation and operated by the pilot. No flight plan was filed for the local flight that originated at CPS about 1000.Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the personal flight that was conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Aviation Regulations Part 91.

According to the pilot, shortly after he took off the clutch warning light came on. He did not think this was abnormal because the belts will heat up and re-tension themselves causing the light to briefly illuminate. However, as a precaution, and as directed by the manufacturer, he waited to see if the light would go out in 10 seconds. The light did not turn off, so he pulled the clutch circuit breaker and landed immediately in a parking lot. After landing, the pilot locked the controls, got out of the helicopter and looked inside the engine compartment. He did not see anything abnormal. At this point, the pilot said a group of young men, who "didn't look friendly" were waving their arms and saying that he wasn't allowed to land there. The pilot was unable to find his cell phone to call for help, so he elected to get back in the helicopter and make the short flight back to the airport. The pilot then departed and was about 500 yards from landing on runway 5, when the helicopter began to vibrate and "make a lot of noise." The pilot entered an autorotation. He said, "As I slowed and did the flair to land the helicopter yawed to the left as I pulled collective to run it on. I realized there was no tail rotor. The skids contacted the ground and dug into the soft ground.. I think that's when the tail boom lifted and the blade cut it off."

The helicopter was retained for further examination.

eagle5 · April 8, 2015

So when they say that you should when possible alter your flight path to stay near "favorable" forced landing areas, what they really mean is, don't fly over the bad parts of town!