‘Slow down and land immediately’

NTSB: Employees on the ground saw swinging hose before copter crashed

As the pilot of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter made his seventh pass while doing a test on a new water tank last month at Leesburg airport, employees on the ground noticed something was wrong: the suction hose was swinging and coming dangerously close to the main rotor blades.

One employee called up to the air traffic control and asked the pilot be told to “slow down and land immediately.” Another employee tried to get the pilot’s attention by waving her arms but he didn’t see her.

Before the air traffic controller could tell the pilot to land, he began to increase forward speed and altitude. Witnesses then noticed the hose swinging “violently” and heard a bang, which was likely the sound of the hose hitting the rotor blades. The rotor blades separated and hit the tail section which then fell off the helicopter.

Witnesses said the Black Hawk started to spin and fell below the tree line followed by an explosion and smoke rising over the trees.

The account is part of the preliminary report released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board about the May 17 crash which killed the pilot and three others.

The helicopter crashed about 1,300 feet east of the runway in a heavily wooded and swampy area, while the tail fell about 78 feet from the wreckage, the report said. The water tank was “heavily fragmented” and landed on the edge of the runway.

Firehawk Helicopters, which as a hanger at Leesburg airport, was conducting tests on a recently-purchased water tank. As part of the test, the pilot flew the helicopter to a lake adjacent to the airport where it would pick up water and dump it nearby before flying back

to the hanger area and starting the process over again. The first six passes were fine, but trouble started on the seventh which is when Firehawk employees tried unsuccessfully to get the pilot’s attention, the report said.

NTSB’s report is just preliminary and a final report could take up to a year to complete. The wreckage, heavily damaged by fire, was taken to a facility for inspection.

The victims still haven’t been identified, but a GoFundme account identified one as Robert Ray, who lived near Denton, Texas. As of Wednesday, it has raised about $80,000 for the family to pay for funeral expenses, meals and child care.

Firehawk was founded as Brainerd Helicopters Inc. in 1973 and has been flying Black Hawks for 25 years, according to its website.