An Air Methods Airbus Helicopters AS350 B3e crashed on takeoff from a Colorado hospital’s heliport because the pilot was unaware that pressure in the tail rotor’s hydraulic circuit had been depleted during a preflight check, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
The preflight hydraulic check itself, as well as the “lack of salient alerting to the pilot that hydraulic pressure was not restored before takeoff,” were cited by the NTSB as the probable causes of the July 3, 2015, accident, which killed the pilot and seriously injured the two flight nurses.
“Such alerting might have cued the pilot to his failure to reset the yaw servo hydraulic switch to its correct position during the preflight hydraulic check, which resulted in a lack of hydraulic boost to the pedal controls, high pedal forces and a subsequent loss of control after takeoff,” the NTSB said in its final report on the accident, issued in late March.
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