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Shop NowIt was clearly a crash but any landing you can walk away from is a good one, pilots say. A security camera at the Pearland Regional Airport, in Brazoria County, Texas, caught the final seconds. A small helicopter came spiraling down out of control but nobody was seriously injured.
Helicopter crash in progress
It’s not every day that the crash of an aircraft gets filmed as it’s happening. On Sunday, October 27, at around 9:30 in the morning, a Robinson R44 aircraft was making a normal approach when it suddenly started spinning out of control.
The video appears to show that the tail rotor somehow became detached just prior to landing.
Without a tail rotor for stability, the body of the personal size helicopter started spinning in the opposite direction to the rotor blades. It’s easy to see why the pilot needed a moment before climbing out after the crash.
It must have been one heck of a dizzying amusement ride on the way down. That’s exactly why they’re called “whirlybirds.”
The pilot hasn’t been identified and it’s not clear if he’s the owner. Either way, someone is going to be filling out a whole bunch of insurance forms.
Not only did the helicopter crash with serious damage, it spun into an airplane parked next to the runway. The rotor blade of the helicopter chopped away at it like a Cuisinart.
Completely unharmed
Reports note that the rotor blades kept chopping away at the stationary fixed wing aircraft until the blades spun off. The pilot kept enough presence of mind after the crash to kill the engine.
As the blades stopped spinning, “people from the garage rushed to assist the pilot.” They were glad to see he didn’t need medical attention. As they swooped in to give him a hand, he emerged “completely unharmed.”
There weren’t any passengers aboard. Just to follow proper procedure, “the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office was called to the scene.”
They gave the pilot a quick once over but “no medical services were required.” The Federal Aviation Administration will be looking into the cause of the crash, along with the NTSB.
It’s clear that the officials will be zooming in on the tail rotor. They’ll want to know how it could happen to fall off. The pilot is actually lucky. If it had happened at higher altitude or over rough terrain he could be toast.
Such a small helicopter suggests that the pilot also owned and maintained it. If so, he has nobody to blame for the crash but himself. He can’t blame Boeing for this one.
