“I tried to gain control of the helicopter, adjusted my headset and gazed outside and all I could see was reddish brown and blue, reddish brown of the lava and blue of sky, literally over and over we went, all the way yawing faster and faster.” So said Tim Hunter, the pilot of an air tour Bell 407 that crashed in Hawaii on June 8, 2022, after its tail boom separated in flight.
Speaking at the Heli-Expo Safety Symposium on Monday, Hunter described how he was flying his fourth flight of the day—a sunset tour with five passengers onboard. Hunter was flying at 1,500 feet and about 130 knots just 30 minutes into the two-hour tour from the Paradise Helicopters base at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport (PHKO) when he heard a loud “whoosh” and was pitched forward with enough force to dislodge his headset.
A seasoned former USMC pilot with 14 years of flight experience, Hunter began to instinctively implement his emergency training to regain control of the helicopter, but no amount of training could have prepared him for the reality of the situation: the 407’s tail boom was no longer attached to the helicopter and was now falling to earth separately from the fuselage.
"The helicopter began to yaw uncontrollably, spinning faster and faster,” Hunter told the audience in the packed ballroom at the Anaheim Convention Center. “I pushed my left pedal trying to arrest this yaw, and the pedal went right to the floor; I knew it was an emergency at this time.”
Hunter noted that he couldn’t get a sense of the helicopter’s attitude, saying the 407’s cyclic and collective became very heavy as the hydraulic system failed. He announced a mayday as he began chanting the mantra “straight and level” in his head over and over again. He instructed his screaming passengers to brace for a hard landing, as he used all the strength in his 6-foot-5-inch, 215-pound frame to wrestle with the controls. That fight caused four spiral fractures in his right arm.
Instinctively, Hunter rolled the engine throttle into idle. “This is what experience and training was telling me—it was more of a reaction than a thought or a decision; it just came naturally.” Hunter believes this action may have reduced the torque on the fuselage and slowed its rotation, allowing it to make a less violent impact.
The 407 crashed in a field of jagged, abrasive lava rock, and Hunter’s overriding thought was for everyone to get away from the helicopter in case of fire. Yet he found himself suspended in air, still restrained by his harness. Seeing Hunter’s injured arm, a young passenger found a rotor tie-down strap in the wreckage and fashioned a sling, immobilizing the injured limb, before releasing Hunter.
Miraculously, the 407’s fuel system—holding more than 700 pounds of jet-A—maintained its integrity and there was no fire. Even more miraculously, everyone on board had survived with varying degrees of injuries.
Using data from the company’s flight following system and the rotorcraft’s emergency locator transmitter, which activated in the crash, a rescue was initiated within minutes and a rescue helicopter piloted by Hunter’s director of operations (DO) was quickly on the scene. Hunter’s memory faded in and out, but he remembered jokingly telling the DO, “Thanks for the bumpy ride” on landing at PHKO. He was then taken by air ambulance to Honolulu.
When he awoke, Hunter found himself in intensive care quarantine because one of his passengers had tested positive for Covid during treatment. He had broken 17 bones in the accident, including his sacrum, humerus, and 13 ribs. Despite continually asking after the status of his passengers, it was finally on his third day in the ICU, after regaining consciousness from surgery, that Hunter was told they all survived. “This was the best feeling ever,” he told the audience, his voice breaking with emotion. “We had all survived.”
He also learned what had caused the wild plunge of his helicopter. A friend who had seen the accident site told Hunter the tail boom was found a great distance from the fuselage. “He told me I wasn’t a pilot, but a test pilot at that time.”
What followed was more medical obstacles to overcome, more surgeries, rehab, and extensive physical and occupational therapy for Hunter, who credits his partner Katlyn Lewis with pulling him through.
He has not had any contact with the passengers from that fateful day, although he said he would welcome it. While Hunter was distracted trying to control the helicopter, he believes they have more recollection of the plunge than he does and doesn’t want to be responsible for having them relive those traumatic memories again.
During his incapacitation, Hunter’s aviation medical certification expired. “I hope 2024 is the year that I get recovered enough to get out of worker’s comp and potentially back to flying,” he said. “Paradise Helicopters has been supportive and key to my well-being more than I can tell you.”
Hunter has logged eight hours of flying since the accident on dual controls and said it feels natural, but added that he needs to make a decision about whether he still has what it takes. “I’m not sure how long that will take or if that confidence will come back, but I feel that it's close. I never had a doubt in my confidence prior to this and now I don’t doubt it, I just have to get it again.”
The post-crash investigation by the NTSB revealed that the bolt securing the upper left corner of the tailboom had sheared, resulting in fatigue fractures in the lower left corner. These fractures grew over time and eventually resulted in an overload of the remaining three bolts and rear bulkhead to which they were attached.
Investigators found that the helicopter was within its inspection limits and there were no indicators, such as wrinkled skin, that might have alerted the operator to the impending failure.
During the investigation, Bell revealed that another helicopter suffered a similar upper-left-hand bolt failure in 2019. That failure was discovered during a 300-hour inspection, but there were no resulting fractures.
In December 2022, the NTSB issued two recommendations for the immediate inspection of tailboom attachment hardware and fittings on the 407, as well as recurrent inspections at a more frequent interval. No action has yet been taken on the latter by Bell, Transport Canada, or the FAA.
According to Chihoon Shin, the NTSB’s airworthiness group chairman, last month Transport Canada notified it that another fractured upper left bolt had been discovered on a Bell 407 during its 300-hour inspection in September. In common for all three helicopters was a replacement of the upper left longeron in their maintenance history.
“What happened to Tim should never happen to any other person,” concluded NTSB member Michael Graham, who moderated the discussion. “If you are an operator that flies a Bell 407, I encourage you to take immediate action and conduct the one-time visual inspection for the attachment fitting or hardware of the tailboom and also reduce the recurrent inspection intervals significantly less than the current 300 hours inspection.”