FTW94FA224 · Aerospatiale AS 350B-2
Rocky Mountain Helicopters Aerospatiale AS 350B-2 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Summit Medical Center Heliport (91CO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94FA224
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aerospatiale AS 350B-2
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-350
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N95LG
- Operator
- Rocky Mountain Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Summit Medical Center Heliport (91CO), Frisco, COTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Maneuvering · hover
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Granite, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIR AMBULANCE (EMS) HELICOPTER WAS DISPATCHED TO PICK UP AN INJURED HIKER ON A 14,000' MOUNTAIN. TERRAIN AT THE PICKUP POINT WAS AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 12,200' AND SLOPED APPROXIMATELY 35 DEGREES. GROUND RESCUE PERSONNEL SAID THE PILOT ADVISED THEM HE WOULD PLACE THE HELICOPTER'S RIGHT SKID ON THE MOUNTAIN SLOPE TO ALLOW THEM TO LOAD THE PATIENT ON THE DOWNHILL SIDE. AS THE HELICOPTER HOVERED ABOVE THEM, THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES STRUCK ROCKS. THE HELICOPTER THEN WENT OVER THEIR HEADS, CRASHED, AND SUBSEQUENTLY TUMBLED ABOUT 800' DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ASSURE MAIN ROTOR CLEARANCE FROM SLOPING TERRAIN WHILE IN A HOVER. THE TERRAIN CONDITION WAS A RELATED FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94FA224
- Event ID
- 20001206X01729
- Case number
- FTW94FA224
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-07-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 280def9e6823b88ec08b3e50f9f7989655a1a513cf5b716a14f5485be7d75648; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:05:01.710Z.