SK Logistics Eurocopter France AS355 F1 accident
Eurocopter France AS355 F1 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02FA062
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Eurocopter France AS355 F1
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS355
- 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
- N355D
- Operator
- Sk Logistics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo 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
- Approach
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A helicopter was transporting a passenger to an offshore platform after official sunset. According to the witness, as they waited on the platform to receive the helicopter they saw lights drop into the ocean. The pilot was recovered by the U.S. Coast Guard and transported to a hospital. The passenger onboard the helicopter was not located until the following day. The helicopter was found 35 miles off the coast in approximately 87 feet of water. Examination of the wreckage revealed no mechanical or flight control malfunctions were discovered with the helicopter. According to the Department of Interior policies, helicopter operation shall be limited to daylight hours, and under visual weather conditions only when operating to and from off-shore platforms. The main deck of the platform is 71 feet above sea level. The helicopter landing area is 43 feet long by 43 feet wide, and was not equipped with lights for night operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow operating procedures and, experienced spatial disorientation while attempting a night landing to an offshore platform. A factor was a dark night.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02FA062
- Event ID
- 20020314X00344
- Case number
- ATL02FA062
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-03-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f5f3825168c61802f5dc86adac39171faf6b5f6c2465a6b71dab4a32ad8bec2e; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:06:32.461Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N355D; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.