Bell APT70 N314AL

Summary

On 14 March 2023 at about 15:00 local time, a Bell APT70 registered N314AL, operated by Bell Textron Inc, was involved in an accident near Mineral Wells, Texas, United States. One person was on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

14 March 2023 at 15:00

Classification

Accident

Location

Mineral Wells, Texas, United States

Coordinates

32.8932, -98.2332

Aircraft

Bell APT70

Registration

N314AL

Category

Powered-Lift

Year built

2019

Engines

4

Operator

Bell Textron Inc

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Flight Test

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

CEN23LA135

Nobody was injured.

The flight crew’s loss of control of the unmanned aircraft due to software limitations. Contributing to the accident was the overly restrictive low voltage threshold limits.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

During a flight test, the unmanned aircraft’s flight control computer registered a low battery voltage reading and entered an automatic land in place flight maneuver. The aircraft was hovering over a large bush at the time and the ground station operator (GSO) attempted to override the system, but the system rejected the commands. The GSO attempted to change the land in place waypoint, but the system again rejected the command. The aircraft performed its land in place maneuver and collided with the bush, which resulted in the aircraft tipping over and coming to rest inverted. The operator reviewed the aircraft systems and found the low voltage threshold to be overly restrictive. In addition, software prevented the flight crew from overriding the land in place command and regaining control of the aircraft by changing the waypoint.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.