Helicopter crash report advises against carrying passengers during risky training
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RED DEER – A Transportation Safety Board report into a fatal helicopter crash in central Alberta recommends pilots think twice before practising potentially risky safety manoeuvres with passengers aboard.
The report, issued Thursday, examined a crash of a Bell Textron 206L-4, known as a LongRanger, which experienced a hard landing in July 2025 while conducting a private flight west of Red Deer with the pilot and one passenger on board.
The report says the pilot began practising autorotation, an emergency procedure typically used in helicopters when the engine fails.
The first autorotation landing was uneventful, but the report says a second attempt resulted in the helicopter pitching upward, banking and then descending rapidly before hitting the ground.
The passenger, a 54-year-old resident of Benalto, Alta., was killed, and the 63-year-old pilot who was a resident of Lacombe County was seriously injured.
The report says that while practising autorotations is essential to helicopter pilot training, it’s riskier than regular flight, and exposing passengers to the elevated risk “should be carefully considered” before pilots do it.
“In Canada, there are regulations restricting emergency training with passengers during commercial operations but not during private operations,” the TSB report noted.
The report also said neither person on board wore a helmet. While not required, it said the pilot suffered a serious head injury.
It said an article was published in 2024 in Transport Canada’s Aviation Safety Letter, advocating for the use of a helmet for all helicopter operations.
That article, titled “Look Like Maverick, Wear Your Helmet!” noted a high percentage of helicopter accidents occur at low speed during the hovering phase. It said that in a rollover, the chopper’s main rotor blades strike surrounding obstacles or the ground with such tremendous force that “the shock felt by the occupants is brutal.”
A helmet can also protect the pilot during bird strikes where the bird smashes through the window, the article said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2026.