An air tour pilot’s decision to fly into an area of rising Hawaiian terrain and low clouds led to the 2011 crash of a Eurocopter1 EC130 B4, which killed the pilot and all four of his passengers, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
In its final report on the Nov. 10, 2011, accident, issued in late July, the NTSB said the probable cause was the pilot’s “failure to maintain clearance from mountainous terrain while operating in marginal weather conditions.” The horizontal stabilizer and the lower forward portion of the fenestron (the shrouded tail rotor) struck either the ground or vegetation as the helicopter flew along a ridge leading from the center of the Hawaiian island of Molokai to lower land near the shoreline, the report said. The impact separated the fenestron from the helicopter, and as a result, the pilot lost control of the helicopter, the report added.
The accident flight — the pilot’s third flight of the day in the accident…
