Rocky Mountain Helicopters MBB BK117A-3 incident
MBB BK117A-3 · Incident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Palo Alto, CA to Cupertino, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87IA260
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
MBB BK117A-3
- Aircraft type
- MBB BK117
- 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
- N160BK
- Operator
- Rocky Mountain Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto, CATo Cupertino, CA
- 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
- Landing
- 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 object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Air/ground communications, inadequate
- Ground personnel › Crew/group coordination, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Visual/aural perception
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A MBB BK117A-3 HELICOPTER COLLIDED WITH WIRES WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH TO AN ASPHALT ROAD IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT. NIGHT VMC PREVAILED AT THE TIME. THE PILOT INDICATED THAT HE DID NOT SEE THE WIRES AND WAS UNAWARE OF THE COLLISION UNTIL HE WAS INFORMED BY GROUND PERSONNEL. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD MADE 'NUMEROUS ORBITS' PRIOR TO BEGINNING HIS DESCENT FOR THE LANDING. THE PILOT ALSO INDICATED THAT HIS VISION WAS HAMPERED BY BLOWING DUST FROM THE HELICOPTER'S ROTORWASH AND THAT HE WAS BLINDED BY A SPOTLIGHT ON A LAW ENFORCEMENT VEHICLE. THE FLIGHT NURSE WHO WAS OCCUPYING THE RIGHT SEAT FACING AFT ALSO INDICATED THAT THE CONDITIONS WERE DUSTY AND GROUND PERSONNEL HAD POINTED THE LIGHT IN THE PILOTS FACE. THE PILOT ALSO INDICATED COMMUNICATIONS WITH GROUND PERSONNEL WAS OFTEN GARBLED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87IA260
- Event ID
- 20001213X31548
- Case number
- LAX87IA260
- 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: e876310e6f7dc97f8b5bf46082845d62e5e91711f453993ac4907af4f7969d7d; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:39:47.149Z.