Accident Overview
On July 16, 2010, about 1530 mountain daylight time, a Robinson R-44 II helicopter, registration N944DW, impacted the asphalt parking ramp between a row of hangars at Salt Lake City International Airport, Salt Lake City, Utah. The commercial pilot and his passenger sustained serious injuries. One person on the ground received serious injuries, and one person on the ground was killed during the accident sequence. The helicopter, owned by Veracity Leasing LLC and operated by Pathfinder Helicopters, sustained substantial damage. The repositioning flight was conducted under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 in visual meteorological conditions. No flight plan had been filed.
Sequence of Events
According to the operator, the pilot planned to take off from the asphalt ramp and land on a flatbed trailer connected to a pickup truck located a few feet away. Once strapped down, the helicopter was to be transported by trailer to a distant location. The pilot and an assistant wheeled the helicopter out of the hangar and removed the ground-movement wheels from the skids. The assistant then occupied the left front seat to equalize lateral load during landing on the trailer.
The pilot lifted the helicopter off the ground, hovered to the trailer, and successfully landed. He lowered the collective and rolled the throttle to ground idle. Another assistant approached the trailer to assess the alignment between the skids and the trailer's skid locks, determining the helicopter was too far to the right for the locks to fasten. After attempting unsuccessfully to secure the locks, the pilot decided to raise the collective to get light on the skids and slide left. He brought the throttle to flight idle and raised the collective, stating he did not lift off the trailer. Using cyclic inputs to move left, he initially could not move the helicopter but eventually it "just gave way." The nose swung left, the aft part of the right skid came off the trailer, and the helicopter began to fall off backwards.
In an effort to lift clear and regain control, the pilot applied up collective and forward cyclic. The helicopter lifted off, but the main rotor blades tilted forward and struck the cab of the pickup truck. After the rotor contact, the helicopter spun about 180 degrees and impacted the tarmac beside the trailer. During this sequence, a main rotor blade struck an individual standing near the trailer, the right-seat passenger was ejected, and another person on the ground was injured seriously.
After impact, with the engine running and rotors still turning, the pilot disengaged the rotor clutch, turned off the master switch, and rotated the ignition keys to OFF. As he turned the keys, a rapidly growing fire started on the outside of the helicopter. The pilot unfastened his seat belt, crawled out through the broken front windscreen, helped the ejected passenger (kneeling on the left rear portion of the trailer) to move away, and then assisted another person in pulling the individual struck by the rotor blade away from the wreckage and fire.
Post-Accident Inspection
A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) directed/monitored post-accident inspection of the helicopter wreckage revealed no evidence of an engine or flight control malfunction or anomaly. The operator indicated on the NTSB Form 6120.1 that there had not been any mechanical malfunction or failure.