Priority Letter: Bell Helicopter Textron Model 204B, 205A, and 205A-1 Helicopters

Details

• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Aviation safety
  • Airworthiness
  • Aircraft
  • Helicopters
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration
• Abstract:
  This priority letter Airworthiness Directive (AD) is prompted by an accident involving the inflight failure of the tailboom vertical fin spar (vertical fin spar) on a Model 205A-1 helicopter. Two other accidents on restricted category (military surplus) aircraft of similar type design have occurred. One of the accidents resulted in a fatality. In 1971 the FAA issued AD 71-21-02 which addressed this problem by requiring a terminating action of adding a steel doubler to the inside edge of the vertical fin spar. There have been several additional failures since that AD was issued. A large number of high-power events can cause fatigue cracks which will cause the vertical fin spar to fail. This condition, if not corrected, could result in in-flight failure of the vertical fin spar and subsequent loss of control of the helicopter.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/13397/dot_13397_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 108.36 KB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7e59808af133351ccdd68c7f70a168b8c390f0c3f02027e99c6a2ee7ffa695568c99c585f9fc19f9dd4c56d59bebf762e270a62618b00441f0207239c68b08f9