Temsco Helicopters Eurocopter AS-350B-2 accident
Eurocopter AS-350B-2 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Juneau International Airport (JNU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99FA139
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Eurocopter AS-350B-2
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter 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
- N6007S
- Operator
- Temsco Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Juneau International Airport (JNU), AKTo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · descent
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial helicopter pilot, with five passengers aboard, was attempting to return to the Juneau International Airport after completion of an ice field sightseeing tour flight. During a gradual descent, over a large, featureless, and snow-covered ice field, a localized snow shower momentarily reduced his forward visibility. The pilot reported he slowed the helicopter to about 70 knots and attempted to use a mountain range on the left side of the helicopter for visual reference. He said: 'The visibility got to a point where I was unable to discern any topographic features, only a dark shape on the horizon.' He added that 'flat light conditions' contributed to his inability to recognize any topographical features on the ice surface. The helicopter continued to descend, struck the snow-covered ice field, slid about 150 feet, and nosed over. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the helicopter. The helicopter was not equipped with a radar altimeter, and the pilot did not hold an instrument rating. The pilot received no emergency instrument training from the company, nor did the company require him to demonstrate the ability to maneuver the helicopter solely by reference to the installed flight instruments. FAA Order 8400.10 requires Principal Operations Inspectors, and approved company check airmen, to have pilots demonstrate their ability to control a helicopter solely by reference to flight instruments during 14 CFR 135.293 competency checks for VFR-only helicopter operations. The operator's FAA-approved training manual did not require training or competency checks of the pilot's ability to maneuver the helicopter solely by reference to flight instruments.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), and inadequate altitude/clearance. Factors associated with the accident were flat light and whiteout conditions, snow, and snow-covered terrain. An additional factor was the FAA's inadequate certification/approval of the operator's training manual, which did not require the operator to provide instrument training or instrument flight proficiency checks to its pilots.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99FA139
- Event ID
- 20001212X19659
- Case number
- ANC99FA139
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 933315d3f4f8e46740f067722fce20317305e3978ee498231fc03a40772b0fe2; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:53:16.982Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N6007S; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, HXSA.