Abrupt control movements — which “highly likely” resulted when a 5-year-old girl moved from her father’s lap and inadvertently stepped on the collective — were the probable cause of the Feb. 14, 2010, fatal crash of a Eurocopter EC135 in Cave Creek, Arizona, U.S., the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
The NTSB cited as a contributing factor the “absence of proper cockpit discipline from the pilot.”
The pilot and all four passengers were killed in the crash, which occurred in visual meteorological conditions around 1505 local time during a planned flight from Whispering Pines Ranch near Parks, Arizona, to Scottsdale Airport, about 150 mi (241 km) to the south.
In the final accident report approved in November 2012, the NTSB said its investigation revealed that a rotor blade had struck the left horizontal endplate and the tail rotor drive shaft, resulting in the loss of control that preceded the crash.
“The only way that this condition cou…
