Bell 407 accident near Broadus, TX
On March 27, 2003, a Bell 407 (helicopter) was involved in an accident near Broadus, TX. 2 people died. Damage to the aircraft: destroyed.
- Date
- March 27, 2003
- Place
- Broadus, TX
- Aircraft
- Bell 407 · Helicopter
- Injuries
- 2 fatal, 3 serious, 0 minor
- Damage
- Destroyed
- Position
- 31.054°N, 97.563°W
- NTSB ID
- 20030502X00613
Official records · FTW03FA118
- Public docket: reports, statements and exhibits from the investigation
NTSB summary
HISTORY OF FLIGHT On March 27, 2003, at 1636 central standard time, a Bell 407 helicopter, N175PA, registered to I Inc., of Kirkland, Washington, and operated as a Public Use aircraft under contract to the US Forest Service (USFS), was destroyed when it crashed into heavily wooded terrain near Broadus, Texas, while conducting low level flight operations in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) mission to support an inter-agency (NASA, Texas Forest Service, USFS) search/recovery effort of Columbia Space Shuttle debris. The pilot and 1 crewmember were fatally injured and 3 other crewmembers sustained serious injuries. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a VFR flight following plan was filed for the Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 Public Use flight. The flight originated at 1515 from the search operation's Helibase, located at the Angelina County Airport, 7 miles south of Lufkin, Texas. The helicopter was assigned to the search mission in the Angelina National Forest on March 23, 2003. On March 25th, the 5-person crew was assigned, and flights took place on that day. On March 26th, the helicopter was out of service for scheduled maintenance. On the morning of March 27th, the pilot performed a routine post maintenance evaluation flight of 30-minutes duration. After the successful evaluation flight, the helicopter and crew were dispatched to commence their assigned search grid, refueled, and returned to the grid to complete the day's mission. After the last fly over of the grid, the helicopter made a right turn and was in the process
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to erratic fuel flow metering to the engine resulting from the single point failure of the PLA potentiometer in the hydro-mechanical fuel control unit. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain to execute a forced landing.
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Browse: Texas · Bell aircraft
Source: NTSB aviation accident database (US government, public domain). Findings may be preliminary or later revised by the NTSB. Not a complete global record.
