NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR21LA183
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
A tail rotor blade strike to an undetermined object while practicing approaches to unimproved terrain.
Factual narrative
The flight instructor reported that, he performed a preflight inspection with the pilot receiving instruction and did not observe any damage to the tail rotor blades before the accident flight. They subsequently departed to a nearby training area and completed several terrain flight approaches to a sandy wash area using standard approach profiles. After one hour of flight and about 15 approaches they returned to their departure airport. While performing a post-flight inspection, the flight instructor and the pilot both observed substantial damage to the tail rotor blades. According to the flight instructor, at no point during the flight did they feel any unusual vibrations with the helicopter, nor did they observe any debris within the landing area. The flight instructor reported no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation. 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).
- — Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring environment-Pilot
- — Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Debris/dirt/foreign object-Effect on operation
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2021_WPR21LA183.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 (icing). 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 2026 · Contractor Report (CR)
Icing Physics Studies Using the 3D SIDRM Test Article: 2023 Icing Tests Analysis
In-flight icing is an important safety issue and is a factor that affects aircraft design and performance. Newer regulations are driving a need for improvements in airframe and engine icing simulation…
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning for UAV-Assisted 5G Network Slicing: A Comparative Study of MAPPO, MADDPG, and MADQN
The growing demand for robust, scalable wireless networks in the 5G-and-beyond era has led to the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as mobile base stations to enhance coverage in dense urb…
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER)
A Mathematical Model on the Temporal Dynamics of Aviation Competitive Pricing
This study investigates the competitive dynamics of airport pricing using U.S. airport data to validate the findings. It employs linear and nonlinear ordinary differential equation models to analyze t…
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Presentation
NASA Icing Update – March 2025
This NASA Icing Update was prepared for presentation to the SAE International AC-9C Inflight Icing Technology Committee. This update includes the following topics: planned Rotational Icing Scaling tes…
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint
An energy-stable phase-field model for droplet icing simulations
A phase-field model for three-phase flows is established by combining the Navier-Stokes (NS) and the energy equations, with the Allen-Cahn (AC) and Cahn-Hilliard (CH) equations and is demonstrated ana…
- NASA NTRS 2024 · Presentation
NASA Icing Update – Oct 2024
This presentation provides a status update on select NASA icing research activities for the SAE AC-9C Icing Technical Committee Meeting on Oct 21, 2024.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗