NTSB CAROL · Event
Event BFO86LHD01
Registry · N13FH
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
BHI H60 HELICOPTERS LLC UH-60A
Year of manufacture
1981 · 4 years old at event
Engine
GE T700-GE-700 (1561 hp)
Seats / Engines
19 seats · 2 engines
Last airworthiness date
20190131
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S A0795D
Registrant of record
BRAINERD HELICOPTERS INC
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Factual narrative
THE ACFT IMPACTED TREES DURING A VOR APCH AND DESCENDED TO GROUND IMPACT. THE PLT FLEW THE APCH WITH THE AUTOPILOT COUPLED. THE ALT HOLD AND ALERT WERE SET FOR THE MDA. WHEN VISUAL CONTACT WITH THE ARPT ENVIROMENT WAS ESTABLISHED, THE PLT DISCONNECTED THE ALT HOLD AND BEGAN LOWERING FULL FLAPS. AT THIS TIME THE ELECTRIC TRIM PITCHED THE NOSE OF THE ACFT DOWN AND THE ACFT IMPACTED TREES. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1985_BFO86LHD01.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (autopilot). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
ROSflight 2.0: Lean ROS 2-Based Autopilot for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
ROSflight is a lean, open-source autopilot ecosystem for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Designed by researchers for researchers, it is built to lower the barrier to entry to UAV research and acceler…
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
ROSplane 2.0: A Fixed-Wing Autopilot for Research
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research requires the integration of cutting-edge technology into existing autopilot frameworks.
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint
A Data-Driven Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft Based on Model Predictive Control
Autopilots for fixed-wing aircraft are typically designed based on linearized aerodynamic models consisting of stability and control derivatives obtained from wind-tunnel testing.
- arXiv 2022 · arXiv preprint
Experimental Flight Testing of a Fault-Tolerant Adaptive Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft
This paper presents an adaptive autopilot for fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.
- arXiv 2021 · arXiv preprint
An Adaptive Digital Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft with Actuator Faults
This paper develops an adaptive digital autopilot for a fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.
- arXiv 2020 · arXiv preprint
Reinforcement Learning for Robust Missile Autopilot Design
Designing missiles' autopilot controllers has been a complex task, given the extensive flight envelope and the nonlinear flight dynamics.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗