NTSB CAROL · Event
Event GAA17CA178
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The separation of the throttle cable’s outer housing from the inner housing at the throttle linkage while at a high-power setting, which prevented the pilot from being able to control the throttle and execute a proper landing flare and resulted in a hard landing.
Factual narrative
The flight instructor of the helicopter reported that about halfway through the flight he "discovered that the throttle control was inoperative" and stuck in the high RPM setting. He turned the helicopter back to the departure airport and briefed his student on the situation. Upon being cleared to land, he executed a "running landing" and performed a go around on the first try. On the second try, the skids made hard contact with the runway and the helicopter came to a stop. A post-accident examination revealed the helicopter had sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The flight instructor reported that the throttle cable outer housing separated from the inner solid housing at the throttle linkage, and that the internal wire could now flex outside of the housing. The flight instructor of the helicopter reported that, about halfway through the flight, he "discovered that the throttle control was inoperative" and stuck in the high rpm setting. He turned the helicopter back to the departure airport and briefed his student on the situation. Upon being cleared to land, he executed a "running landing" and performed a go-around on the first try. On the second try, the skids made hard contact with the runway, and the helicopter came to a stop. A postaccident examination revealed that the helicopter had sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. The flight instructor reported that the throttle cable outer housing separated from the inner solid housing at the throttle linkage and that the internal wire could flex outside of the housing. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- C Aircraft-Aircraft power plant-Engine controls-Power lever-Malfunction - C
- C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Landing flare-Attain/maintain not possible - C
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2017_GAA17CA178.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World
Go-Around Safety Forum Findings
Foundation Go-Around Safety Forum technical findings — examines why pilots fail to execute go-arounds when criteria are met (stabilized approach gate not met, energy state out of envelope, traffic con…
- Semantic Scholar 2022 · Article (Journal of Safety Research)
Go-around accidents and general aviation safety.
INTRODUCTION Changes in General Aviation (GA) accident rates, specifically in the go-around phase, are examined by comparing the number of accidents, the proportion of fatal accidents, and the proport…
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aerospace)
Classification and Analysis of Go-Arounds in Commercial Aviation Using ADS-B Data
Go-arounds are a necessary aspect of commercial aviation and are conducted after a landing attempt has been aborted. It is necessary to conduct go-arounds in the safest possible manner, as go-arounds …
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Accepted Manuscript (Version with final changes)
Go-Around Criteria Refinement for Transport Category Aircraft
Presently, airline pilots are trained to go around if, when lower than 500 ft above the ground, they are outside of a handful of parameters such as airspeed, position, and rate of descent.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Validation of Proposed Go-Around Criteria Under Various Environmental Conditions
This paper evaluates the effects of environmental conditions on touchdown performance under varying approach states and validates proposed go-around criteria developed using data from a previously con…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗