The paper presents a model-based fault detection method for pitch actuators faults using the normalized gradient method to estimate the parameters of the pitch actuator. One major difficulty is that the input signal to the parametric estimation method must be a persistent excitation. To circumvent this, a chattering term is added to the pitch control law and the usual low-pass filters are not used for the parametrization in the normalized gradient method (thus acceleration information is used). In order to verify the proposed method, simulations are conducted within a Hardware in the Loop (HiL) platform using the wind turbine simulation software FAST (Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence).