DEN83LA124 · Aerospatiale SA-315B
Aerospatiale SA-315B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83LA124
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aerospatiale SA-315B
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale SA-315
- 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
- N16297
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pickup equipment › Engaged
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER CRASHED DURING TAKEOFF. THE WEATHER WAS VMC AND A COMPANY VFR FLIGHT PLAN WAS ON FILE. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE TOOKOFF AND BROUGHT THE ACFT TO A HOVER, MADE A RIGHT PEDAL TURN AND ACCELERATED FOR A NORMAL TAKEOFF. THE ACFT SUDDENLY JERKED, WENT NOSE DOWN AND LANDED UPSIDE DOWN. THE GROUND OBSERVER INFORMED THE PILOT AFTER THE ACCIDENT THAT THE EXTERNAL LINE WITH A LOAD WAS STILL ATTACHED. THE PILOT WAS CONFIDENT HE HAD RELEASED THE LONG LINE FROM THE ACFT BELLY HOOK AFTER LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83LA124
- Event ID
- 20001214X42959
- Case number
- DEN83LA124
- 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 1983-05-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d223e2bec464d083ab34eeb7847f0a65e48437d3e187d379c2e61c09cd2dad67; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:58:24.700Z.