Eurocopter AS 350/355/EC130 - Astar/Twinstar/Ecureuil
Flight Crew Commercial
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 52; Flight Crew Total 3491; Flight Crew Type 1826
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft; Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors
I completed an air tour with 5 passengers in a Eurocopter 350. The aircraft was on the ground and I started the shutdown procedures to offload and then upload the next tour.  I remember going to lock down the collective with the locking strap and then somehow the HYD switch was disabled and the collective not being secured by the safety strap popped up with the loss of hydraulics. The aircraft drifted to the left and became airborne. I proceeded to fly the aircraft without hydraulics and attempted to hover and land the aircraft immediately.  The aircraft continued to fly and gained an altitude of what appeared to me as 50-75 ft.  I managed to gain control of the aircraft and landed the aircraft on the adjacent taxiway.  The aircraft landed hard and spun around while on the ground.  No abnormal noise or damage to the aircraft or rotor system was felt.  Once on the ground I remember putting the HYD switch on and hydraulics was restored.  I contacted Tower and requested to do shutdown on the taxiway.  I shutdown the aircraft normally to off load the passengers and have maintenance inspect the aircraft.  During the shutdown; I checked with the passengers and they verbally told me they were not injured and did not need any medical attention.  The passengers were off loaded and taken to our operations area.  Tower did initiate the crash rescue team to the site; they checked with me and I told them I was okay and that the passengers were okay and at our operations area.  I proceeded to do a post flight of the aircraft; I checked the rotors to see if they contacted the ground and found no damage.  I did find some damage to the underside of the fuselage and that the protective plastic bubble for the camera was broken and the underside of the fuselage had some scraping with contact from the ground.  The aircraft was towed back to our maintenance hangar and inspected by our director of maintenance.  A thorough inspection was conducted and the only damage found was cosmetic from the scraping of the underside of the fuselage.  A spectrum analysis and test flight was conducted and the aircraft was returned to service.
Eurocopter pilot reported the aircraft did an uncommanded takeoff when he turned the HYD switch off before strapping the collective. He regained control at 50-75 feet AGL and made a hard landing on the taxiway; with some minor damage resulting.