A tail rotor bearing on a Leonardo Helicopters AW169 seized just after the helicopter lifted off from the King Power Stadium in Leicester, England, initiating a series of events that ended when the aircraft crashed onto a concrete surface, killing the pilot and all four passengers, the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) says.
In its final report on the Oct. 27, 2018, accident, the AAIB cited the seizure of the tail rotor duplex bearing as one of three causal factors. The seizure of the bearing touched off “a sequence of failures in the tail rotor pitch control mechanism which culminated in the unrecoverable loss of control of the tail rotor blade pitch angle and the blades moving to their physical limit of travel,” according to the report, which was made public Sept. 6.
“The unopposed main rotor torque couple and negative tail rotor blade pitch angle resulted in an increasing rate of rotation of the helicopter in yaw, which induced pitch and roll devi…
