C150 hits Helicopter, Carlisle, PA, Fatalities, 8/19/26

I believe there is an over-estimation of the rotorwash effects from a Bell 407. From a UH-1 in the C120 video or a H60? Sure. But there is also discussion the 150 was out of position well before the collision. Given the comments of the NTSB IIC, I think we'll see a definitive prelim report sooner than later on the matter.
 
I just saw a clip where someone in a NTSB hat was saying that there were witnesses stating the pilot was doing maintenance on their plane before the accident.
 
AV8R_87 said:
I speculate he was in the "go" phase of a go-around or a touch and go. Did he realize something wasn't right and was trying to get out of there? We might never know.
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Very possible, but I'm not so sure. From what little we can see it also looks a lot like he's landing and then getting lifted and pulled over by the rotor wash.

This is part of all the info the NTSB will hopefully obtain to figure out what the real chain of events were.
 
We can talk through the blame game all day but its clear how this is all going to play out. The NTSB will cite both the 150 and the helicopter pilot as partially as fault, the estate of the 150 pilot will sue the state police for creating a safety hazard (regardless of warranted or not), there will then be a settlement out of court for an undisclosed amount, and a year later everyone will forget about the accident. Its tragic but accidents happen.

When I was learning to fly it was at a small airfield in Connecticut that had a single 1800' strip with a flight school, a helicopter school, and a skydiving operation all using that small runway at the same time on the weekends. One of the first things I was taught was to never takeoff or land if there was a helicopter with its blades turning next to the runway without being in direct contact with that helicopter to ensure they were on the ground and would keep their blades flat and not producing lift or turbulence until after you were well away from them.

In this particular accident it appears that both the 150 pilot as well as the helicopter pilot did not recognize the potential safety issue and neither took steps to mitigate it. Like most accidents, it would have only taken one thing in the accident chain to go different in order to prevent this accident. We can argue over who had what right of way all day but both could have prevented the crash.
 
My home airport (BKV) has national guard stationed with chinooks and Blackhawks all over the place and yes those things scare me along with the c130s doing touch and goes and the occasional parachuting military.
 
kmacht said:
We can talk through the blame game all day but its clear how this is all going to play out. The NTSB will cite both the 150 and the helicopter pilot as partially as fault, the estate of the 150 pilot will sue the state police for creating a safety hazard (regardless of warranted or not), there will then be a settlement out of court for an undisclosed amount, and a year later everyone will forget about the accident. Its tragic but accidents happen.

When I was learning to fly it was at a small airfield in Connecticut that had a single 1800' strip with a flight school, a helicopter school, and a skydiving operation all using that small runway at the same time on the weekends. One of the first things I was taught was to never takeoff or land if there was a helicopter with its blades turning next to the runway without being in direct contact with that helicopter to ensure they were on the ground and would keep their blades flat and not producing lift or turbulence until after you were well away from them.

In this particular accident it appears that both the 150 pilot as well as the helicopter pilot did not recognize the potential safety issue and neither took steps to mitigate it. Like most accidents, it would have only taken one thing in the accident chain to go different in order to prevent this accident. We can argue over who had what right of way all day but both could have prevented the crash.
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Everything I learned about the danger of flying close to helicopters came from a helicopter pilot.
Not mentioned at all in primary, instrument, or commercial training.
At least by my instructors.
Jet wakes? Heck yeah, we were warned.
 
jallen0 said:
I just saw a clip where someone in a NTSB hat was saying that there were witnesses stating the pilot was doing maintenance on their plane before the accident.
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But if you watch the 8/20 NTSB briefing, the IIC stressed that the witnessed maintenance required context, which the NTSB doesn’t yet have. Was the witness even a person with aviation knowledge? The C150 pilot could have simply been performing pre-flight activities.

Note that there is extensive residential housing within 150 ft of the south side of the runway, the point being that at this airport, it is easy for a non-aviation person to “witness” all sorts of aviation activity at close range.
 
I suspect many helo pilots have no clue the danger they pose to fixed wing aircraft, particularly small ones.

I was ferrying a Pacer from Montana to Michigan last summer. I was calling all the appropriate calls to land at an airport in eastern North Dakota, I joined downwind at midfield. As I approached the runway from the west, there was a Blackhawk hovering at midfield, I had heard nothing from him until I stated that I would extend my downwind to wait for him to leave. He replied that he was flying north and was already out of the way, he sounded perhaps annoyed that I was interrupting him. I continued downwind for a couple miles to give the wake time to dissipate. By the time I pulled up to the fuel pump he was already sitting 20' above the runway at midfield again. I got the distinct impression that he had zero idea that his wake could kill someone.

If military helicopters (or police) need to practice hovering, why can't they do it somewhere other than a runway that is in use? After all, they are not landing, just hovering over a spot. I watched two chinooks do that at Dorothy Scott in Washington last summer, one at each end.

In this instance, if the helo pilots were aware there was an airplane coming in to land, why not get out of the way? Or turn to face that direction, instead of putting your back to a potential conflict. Sounds to me like gross errors in communication, and perhaps a lack of understanding of rotor wash on the part of everyone involved.
 
kmacht said:
The NTSB will cite both the 150 and the helicopter pilot as partially as fault,
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Except that is not how the Probable Cause process works. There will be "singular" cause with contributing circumstances, or they were unable to determine the cause. No 50/50 splits. And based on what the NTSB IIC stated this morning of the unusual flight path of the 150 while circling the airport, and the unusual approach to the runway prior to the collision, the 150 may simply have hit the 407 on his own. Who knows at this point. But it was implied they had watched additional video than what is currently in the public domain. Now the civil side sure and bound to happen regardless what the probable cause.

Wagondriver said:
why can't they do it somewhere other than a runway that is in use?
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A lot of airports and cities have restrictions where helicopters can operate which can limit where they can operate.
 
Bell206 said:
A lot of airports and cities have restrictions where helicopters can operate which can limit where they can operate.
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Actually, I do not believe they can place any limits on operations not touching the airport surface. That's the FAA domain. A helicopter hovering is not touching the airport surface.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Actually, I do not believe they can place any limits on operations not touching the airport surface. That's the FAA domain. A helicopter hovering is not touching the airport surface.
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While the airspace is the FAA domain, you'll find at the state or municipal levels the FAA grants leeway for them to manage that helicopter traffic and especially in the terminal areas. My local airport where helicopters are very frequent are restricted to specific departure and approach paths, where they can hover taxi vs wheel taxi, and also prohibits training flights. So when the local operators need to train they go down the road to the next airport who has a dedicated helicopter training area. This airport may have had the same given the other aircraft and development close to the airport?
 
Not to make light of the issue but a 407 operating at less than 5000 pounds is much different then a Blackhawk at 20K or a Chinook at 45-50K…I doubt the Board will find it a factor…guess we will wait a year and see. Maybe I am wrong…
 
Bell206 said:
While the airspace is the FAA domain, you'll find at the state or municipal levels the FAA grants leeway for them to manage that helicopter traffic and especially in the terminal areas. My local airport where helicopters are very frequent are restricted to specific departure and approach paths, where they can hover taxi vs wheel taxi, and also prohibits training flights. So when the local operators need to train they go down the road to the next airport who has a dedicated helicopter training area. This airport may have had the same given the other aircraft and development close to the airport?
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My home field (F95) doesn’t allow Ospreys to hover anywhere near paved surfaces. They have to do that outside the airport fence. Helicopters can do whatever they want.
 
Warlock said:
Not to make light of the issue but a 407 operating at less than 5000 pounds is much different then a Blackhawk at 20K or a Chinook at 45-50K…I doubt the Board will find it a factor…guess we will wait a year and see. Maybe I am wrong…
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But one can feel the wake of a ~2K lb. C172 when doing turns around a point. Gonna guess a helicopter, even a light one, in ground effect, would be making a mini downburst.
Did it affect this plane in this way? Can't ask the only one who could possibly know.
 
I guess one question that comes to my mind is: When is a helicopter considered safely (not technically) clear of a runway? This is unambiguous with a landed airplane, but a helicopter can not only create a trail of lingering prop-wash over a runway, but can continue to do so if hovering after clearing (as they very often seem to do). Personally, I think I may be delaying my own landings longer if following a helicopter knowing how dangerous helicopter rotor vortices can be to a landing small plane. The larger helicopters can really produce some brutal vortices. There was a recent example of this at Cable airport (KCCB) where a landing Cessna 140 flipped over at the numbers due to rotor vortices from a fairly large helicopter that had "landed", also over the numbers, just before it. The crash was violent, but 140 pilot miraculously survived. There is a very illustrative video out there showing the entire incident, including the earlier helicopter landing. Recommended viewing for those interested in this safety issue.
 
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Kenny Phillips said:
Gonna guess a helicopter, even a light one, in ground effect, would be making a mini downburst.
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Don't quite follow what you mean by "downburst," but the strength of rotorwash is related to the chordwise width of the blade and aircraft weight as mentioned above. And hover rotorwash in ground effect is not as strong as in an out of ground effect hover as the ground affects the outflow and especially on an unimproved surface such as the grass median. And having worked under the turning rotor of a 407 and others in both conditions, I can attest to that. And if the IIC comments hold up on the unusual pattern work and unstable approach by the 150, this could simply be the 407 was in the wrong place at the wrong time especially if the 150 pilot had the setting sun in his eyes and lost track of the helicopter.
 
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You can’t discount the effects of wake turb even from a small B407 operating IGE. You've got winds west / northwest at 10 at the time of the accident blowing the wake right down the runway. A C150 most likely in the flare with high AoA. You go from a steady wind to all of a sudden a mini micro burst. That’s gonna create a disturbance. Did it cause this accident? No telling but I can tell you the first thing myself and a coworker thought was, no way I’d be hovering that close to the runway with other aircraft in the pattern.

So many comments on YT from pilots saying they’ve never been taught the effects of helicopter rotor wash. Pilots were surprised at the SR20 vs UH-60 years ago at Colorado. This guy below was caught off guard from a lousy R44 hover taxing across the runway in front of him. Unless you’ve seen the effects of rotor wash first hand you don’t understand how dangerous it can be. I’ve flown through rotor wash countless times and sometimes you can predict it, other times it can catch you completely off guard.



 
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FlightmechH3 said:
S-61
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Dave Theisen said:
H60
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Again, comparing 20,000+ lb aircraft to a <6000 lb aircraft (407) is moot. The questions I've seen being raised is the time frame of when the 407 settled into its hover vs the time the 150 entered its approach. There has also been discussion on if the 407 had flown down the runway center line out of ground effect prior its hover which would create a different scenario for the 150. Regardless, per the IIC they had multiple videos of the 150 approach and collision which should provide the timing and possible effects of the 407 on the 150.
 
Last Saturday a social gathering of pilots were all seated inside a hangar, with the bifold door wide open, having a catered lunch in the same hangar that parks a beautiful fully restored UH-1 Huey. The winds outside were light.

We watched as the fully restored Viet Nam combat Huey was pushed out of the hangar, across a fairly narrow paved ramp, and up a shallow incline onto a little paved section of tie-down pavement measuring just a little larger than the helicopter fuselage itself, surrounded by grass on three sides. I'd estimate the distance between myself (located around five yards inside the open hangar), and the body of the running Huey at no more than 75 yards total distance, and likely less (for golfers to relate - an easy full swing pitching wedge).

The engine was started and ran warming up for around ten minutes. I was seated at the table located closest to the outside, eating from a paper plate. As the Huey began lifting off into a hover taxi and turned its tail towards us I was prepared for some wind into the hangar, and stuck my napkin under the food plate in anticipation... but nothing happened. Nada. Maybe a slight but brief increase in breeze that you wouldn't notice unless looking for it. The lack of wind surprised the heck out of me.

Seated next to me was a Viet Nam combat Huey pilot veteran. I asked him why no blast of rotor wash? His response was it was loaded very lightly, and they didn't need much power to hover taxi away towards the overrun pavement located at the beginning of the active runway (which was busy) before crossing the runway, increasing power and departing the controlled airport. Don't know exactly where takeoff power was applied, or if the tower and/or Huey pilot considered the danger of the departure in proximity to an active runway, right where many pilots begin their flare, and can only hope they did.

Following this tragic C-150 getting sliced up event I'll be much more aware of helicopters and where and what they're doing on and around airports. Don't know much about helicopters, but assume that the aircraft weight, loading, collective, power, surface of the terrain beneath the aircraft, distances, etc., can create various levels of dangerous rotor wash / wake turbulence anywhere on or in proximity to the airport environment.
 
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flyingron said:
I'm surprised this hasn't happened at CJR. A bunch of clowns in some sort of law enforcement mission keep parcticing ops just off the runway in a nook in the trees that obscures them from traffic operating on the runway and no CTAF calls. These things can still throw substantial downwash even if technically off the runway. Perhaps the pilot hit that and overcorrected.
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As soon as I saw this in the news my first thought was the LEO pilots did nothing wrong per regulations but probably profoundly stupid and caused the accident.

Due to my bias towards LEO pilots from 30 years of observation.
 
Until very recently we had an Army Reserve unit of Chinooks at my airport. They would hover taxi across the rwy from the ramp to the infield or compass rose, back and forth. I remember holding short, watching one of those cross the rwy back to the ramp, then being cleared for takeoff. I don’t remember how much time passed between that helicopter crossing the rwy and my takeoff clearance, it wasn’t immediate but it was quicker than I expected. I told tower I was OK with waiting a bit if he was.

I think this video was fresh in my head:


 
Tarheelpilot said:
Due to my bias towards LEO pilots from 30 years of observation.
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Only had one notable experience with a Law Enforcement aviator in even more years of observation, which was interesting enough to remember.

Both of us were flying VFR just beneath shelf of BWI's Class Bravo airspace (before ADS-B and 9/11 - when College Park Airport was still open for visitors) The Baltimore Class B was experiencing a radar outage when a large Maryland State Police turbine helicopter, approaching from 10:00 came into view and just kept getting larger in the windshield, less than a mile away. I'd already been advised no VFR radar advisories were available due to the outage.

Rather than altering course I quickly descended down below him to keep him in view, as he obviously didn't see me off his right side at the same altitude. While passing beneath him I tuned back onto the frequency that was unable to provide advisories and heard the tail end of the State Police helicopter transmission informing ATC that a Mooney just passed very close beneath him, and he was going to follow me. WTH?

I immediately jumped into the conversation and informed him I'm the Mooney you want to follow, and I was only beneath you due you not looking out your window, so you wouldn't run me down. Informed him I'm landing at College Park if he wants to discuss this further. He landed shortly after me, apologized, and asked that I don't take this event any further. Which, I didn't.
 
Rick A said:
and heard the tail end of the State Police helicopter transmission informing ATC that a Mooney just passed very close beneath him, and he was going to follow me. WTH?
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...almost like the job may have a predisposition to attract a certain personality trait? Combine it with uncompetitive pay in non-coastal metro jurisdictions and a culture of tribalism, and well....*insert 3 wise monkeys here*
 
hindsight2020 said:
...almost like the job may have a predisposition to attract a certain personality trait? Combine it with uncompetitive pay in non-coastal metro jurisdictions and a culture of tribalism, and well....*insert 3 wise monkeys here*
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You are very accurate with your comment. Truth
 
I remember a certain deputy that crashed a Jet Ranger in a river several years ago. Turned out that he was hot dogging it at low altitude, but lied that there was a control malfunction that caused the crash. He got away with it due to his "immunity'. Another deputy told me this when he found out I was a former helo guy. He was friends with Officer CFIT......

My blame is on the State Police pilots operating in an unsafe manner next to the runway
 
Dave Theisen said:
Is comparing a 10,000 lb. PC-12 to a 1600 lb. C-150 also moot?
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Yes. Both the videos show forward flight wake turbulence from the helicopters which is a different dynamic than rotorwash effects from a stationary hover in ground effect. However, if certain comments are true that the 407 flew down the runway center line 1 minute prior to their established hover in the infield, then it could be the 150 was affected that wake vortex vs the rotorwash from the subsequent hover. Which would be no different than if the 150 was landing behind any other larger aircraft vs any fault of helicopter hover rotorwash as its been stated the 150 was unstable/LOC well before the helicopter's hover position.
 
Bell206 said:
However, if certain comments are true that the 407 flew down the runway center line 1 minute prior to their established hover in the infield...
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ADS-B data shows the B407 flying down the runway centerline.

2251:17Z Over the 28 numbers at 35 kts
2251:54Z Begin transition from runway centerline to the NW at 9 kts (1,600 ft from threshold)
2252:02Z Final hover position N of runway

Note that the ADS-B data shows the final hover position as just N of the runway edge. However the map overlay used by ADS-B Exchange depicts the N94 runway as wider than it actually is.
 
IMO if the helo was hovering at that location while the 150 was on short final, then the 150 pilot is at fault. He could see the helo right next to the runway and should have recognized the potential hazard. When you follow another aircraft on landing, it is your responsibility to wait for that aircraft to clear the runway and no longer present a hazard.

I would blame the helo pilot if he had abruptly moved closer to the runway after the 150 had crossed the threshold and was committed to the landing.
 
Ed Haywood said:
When you follow another aircraft on landing, it is your responsibility to wait for that aircraft to clear the runway and no longer present a hazard.
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Yes, the C-150 landing too soon may turn out to be the primary cause of this accident. The fact that the C-150 pilot didn't extend his downwind before turning base to allow more time for wake to dissipate shows a lack of concern or awareness of the danger. I believe the winds that evening were relatively calm which would have increased the time needed before a wake-free final, and landing.
 
Bell206 said:
Does that data also show the time interval between the 407 and 150 and their respective altitudes when they crossed the threshold?
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Unfortunately, the last ADS-B data tag for the C150 at 2251:01Z is with the aircraft on an assumed base leg for runway 28. In another aviation forum, a poster extrapolates from this last data tag and estimates that the C150 entered the landing zone on runway 28 about 30 seconds after the B407.

There’s no ADS-B data tag for the B407 as it crosses the threshold but interpolating between the two adjacent data tags gives a time of 2251:13Z at an altitude of about 15 ft above field elevation.
 
AquaLand said:
that the C150 entered the landing zone on runway 28 about 30 seconds after the B407.
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So if the 150 was say at a typical approach elevation or about 30-40 ft above the wake vortex of the 407 at the threshold and in its "unusual" nose down approach attitude, he may have well run into that vortex, which caused the un-stabilized flight movements as noted by the NTSB IIC. And well before where the helicopter hovered off to the right awaiting his landing or go-around??
 
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