Tourist Nearly Crashes Helitour Flight

A viral TikTok video has captured what could have been the final moments of a Grand Canyon helitour flight had the pilot not acted quickly. The video, which has already garnered 2.7 million views, shows a front-seat passenger reaching for the cabin ceiling-mounted rotor brake while the helicopter is in cruise flight. The alert pilot grabs the passenger’s arm and pulls it down before the rotor brake could be activated. 

He loudly admonished the passenger, “No, no, that will kill us!” He adds a variety of hand gestures to reemphasize the point. During preflight safety briefings for helitour flights, passengers are typically warned against touching any flight controls. 

The 2018 fatal crash of a “doors off” helitour flight over New York resulted from an intoxicated front-seat passenger entangling his safety harness in the floor-mounted fuel shut-off lever of an Airbus AS350 B2. 

Social media reaction to the Grand Canyon video has included a series of remarks suggesting that the pilot should have aborted the flight after the incident.