5 Year Old Caused Fatal Helicopter Crash

[Gerard]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/5-year-old-sydney-stewart-caused-fatal-2010-helicopter-crash-kicked-controls-ntsb-article-1.1200227

[megatop412]

Uh...is it just me or does it seem a bit ridiculous that a child merely kicking the controls could not be corrected for, leading to a crash that killed several people

[threeholerglory]

William - I can't read the article because my browser won't open it for some reason, but I talked to some of my sling-wing driver friends the other day and they were talking about people who would be riding along and would accidentally touch the controls and it'd make a HUGE impact on the flight path. From everything I've read, helicopters are particularly sensitive to fly but I'm sure there are tons of details within the article or missing for that matter.

[clear_prop]

Uh...is it just me or does it seem a bit ridiculous that a child merely kicking the controls could not be corrected for, leading to a crash that killed several people

The problem is that the pilot over corrected. The NTSB theory is that the kid pushed down on the collective causing the rotor to unload, and then the pilot pulled up on the collective too quickly/hard and chopped off the tail boom.

Even without an unsecured five year old in the cockpit, helicopters chopping off their own tail boom is a known failure mode.