ATL92GA121 · Enstrom 280FX
Enstrom 280FX · Accident en route
From 71S · Summerville, SC to Charleston International Airport (CHS)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operation. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92GA121
- 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 Possible conflict
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Enstrom 280FX
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom 280
- 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
- N86262
- Operator
- Charleston Cty. Sheriffs Off
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 71S · Summerville, SCTo Charleston International Airport (CHS), Charleston, SC
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Undetermined
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); Tree(s)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Summerville, SC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND OBSERVER WERE TO FLY THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE HELICOPTER FROM SUMMERVILLE TO CHARLESTON (15 MILES TO THE SOUTHEAST) FOLLOWING MAINTENANCE WORK. WHEN THE AIRCRAFT DID NOT ARRIVE AS SCHEDULED, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED. THE HELICOPTER WAS FOUND 4 DAYS LATER IN A FORESTED SWAMP, ABOUT .6 MILE NORTHWEST OF THE AIRPORT. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND UPRIGHT, DESTROYED BY FIRE. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF IMPACT WITH A LARGE TREE AT ABOUT 70 FEET AGL. AN INSPECTION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF A PRE-EXISTING MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. THE PILOT HAD ABOUT 145 HOURS OF HELICOPTER FLIGHT TIME, BUT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED, NOR WAS THE AIRCRAFT CERTIFICATED FOR IFR. NUMEROUS LOCAL RESIDENTS REPORTED HEAVY FOG CONDITIONS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT; ONE PERSON WHO REPORTEDLY HEARD THE CRASH ESTIMATED THE VISIBILITY TO BE ABOUT 50-100 YARDS IN FOG. DARKNESS ALSO PREVAILED AT THE REPORTED TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THE SAFETY BOARD BELIEVES THAT THE PILOT INADVERTENTLY ENTERED IMC CONDITIONS AND WAS ATTEMPTING TO NAVIGATE BACK TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT WHEN THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE TREES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT FLIGHT INTO IMC, WHICH RESULTED IN AN IN FLIGHT COLLISION WITH TREES. FACTORS WERE THE OBSCURED SKY AND FOGGY WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND THE NIGHT LIGHTING CONDITIONS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92GA121
- Event ID
- 20001211X14765
- Case number
- ATL92GA121
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7ad41fee2c13fa54a29a176e132543236eeccec689b95324d605660b157636bf; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:08:18.678Z.