Poor aviation decision making!

[Vance]

A Robinson R 44 was in an NTSB report I felt I should share. It shows that gyroplane people aren’t the only ones who make poor aviation decisions and don’t learn from their mistakes.

The Pilot and three passengers were circling over rural terrain at 150 feet agl and were 219 pounds over gross weight.

The pilot slowed to 10kts with a tail wind? the rotor slowed, the low rotor warning horn sounded.

The pilot lowered the collective to maintain rotor rpm and hit the ground tail first, landed hard crushing the left skid and severing the tail with the rotor.

The pilot reported that there were no mechanical deficiencies and that the helicopter settled with power after he turned into a tail wind?

The pilot reported that the accident wouldn’t have happened if he had turned into a head wind??

I like to think that the chain of poor aviation decisions is evident.

I hope someone will educate this person before he again carries passengers.

Thank you, Vance

[WaspAir]

I haven't seen the NTSB report, but from what you related, the pilot's comments probably don't match what happened. "Settling with power" is a distinct phenomenon from "descending because you're heavy and lack enough power to maintain altitude".

One is closely associated with a vortex ring state and can yield scary vertical velocity when fully developed, usually curable with increased forward speed but aggravated by power adjustment. Every now and then this bites someone who is at partial throttle doing a steep slow approach to landing with a bit of tailwind. The other phenomenon is probably a result of being seriously overloaded while trying to hover out of ground effect and yanking collective to attempt the impossible.

The low rotor rpm situation is not a typical symptom of "settling with power", but can easily result from too much collective pitch and not enough power available to go with it. Reducing collective to regain rpm is essential to survival, but requires a combination of altitude, airspeed, and / or skill in milking the collective to avoiding a painful touchdown. Sounds to me like he didn't get rpm and power back where he needed them before the ground bit him in the skid, but it does not sound like a true settling with power accident. By the way, 150 feet and low airspeed would put you well inside the H-V diagram avoid area in most helicopters.

[brett s]

Yep, sounds like he was too heavy to hover out of ground effect & inadvertently ended up trying to do so; then didn't deal with the resulting situation properly either.

Dropping the nose & regaining airspeed should have easily been possible from that altitude, but he probably just sat there with the collective up in his armpit listening to the low rpm warning for several seconds & then it was too late.