Helicopter crash: broken drive belt caused crash in which man and woman miraculously walked away

The pilot and passenger - a man and a woman - amazingly suffered only minor injuries in the crash last August.

The crash happened as the 1987 built Robinson R22 helicopter – reg G OODX – owned by HQ Aviation of Denham was on a flight from Culworth in Northamptonshire to a private landing site near Upton Snodsbury.

A newly published air-crash report said the drive to the main rotor was lost and that in an attempt to bring the helicopter down safely the pilot used an ‘autorotation’ technique. However, it said as he flared in the final move before touching down the tail of the helicopter hit the ground and suffered “extensive” damage.

Air Accident Investigation Branch investigators have now pinpointed the cause of the drive failure to both drive belts between the engine and the drive shaft failing. What caused them to fail has not been identified though.

The incident happened at just before 1pm on August, 1 last year. Two earlier flights that day had been uneventful.

But, describing what happened just before the crash, the report said: “The pilot reported that whilst cruising at 800 ft and 80 kt he heard a sudden bang, the helicopter “aggressively” yawed to the left, he heard the low rpm horn and saw the clutch light illuminate.

“He initially established the helicopter in autorotation at 60 kt but then reduced the speed to 30 kt to reduce the range and reach a suitable field. During the descent, the pilot pulled the clutch circuit breaker because the clutch light had been illuminated for some time.”

It added: “As the helicopter approached the ground, the pilot flared but this did not sufficiently arrest the descent rate and the tail of the helicopter struck the ground followed by the skids.”

It added the pilot had carried out pre-flight checks on the helicopter and had not found any defects. He had also checked the drive belts and both had “appeared normal.”