DEN82FTC03 · Aerospatiale SA315B
High Life Helicopters Aerospatiale SA315B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN82FTC03
- 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
- General aviation
- 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 SA315B
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale SA315
- 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
- N9007N
- Operator
- High Life Helicopters
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Compressor assembly, blade › Failure, total
- Compressor assembly, blade › Fatigue
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Big Piney, WY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS ENGAGED IN SEISMIC ACTIVITY SUPPLYING EXPLOSIVES BY LONG LINE. THE ENG FAILED AT ABOUT 400-500 FT AGL. THE LOAD WAS RELEASED & AN OPEN FIELD WAS SELECTED. AT ABOUT 150 FT AGL THE PLT WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN ROTOR RPM & THE ACFT IMPACTED THE GROUND IN AN UPRIGHT POSITION. THE ENG TEARDOWN INDICATED A FATIGUE FAILURE OF THE #4 BLADE ON THE AXIAL COMPRESSOR ASSEMBLY. FATIGUE CRACK DEVELOPOMENTOCCURRED ACROSS APPROXIMATELY 2/3 OF THE PLATFORM AREA BEFORE FINAL SEPARATION OCCURRED. THE BLADE SEPARATION CAUSED SEVERE INTERNAL DAMAGE WITHIN THE COMPRESSOR ASSEMBLY INCLUDING EXTREME AXIAL WHEEL DAMAGE, DESTRUCTIONOF THE AXIAL COMPRESSOR DIFFUSER & BEARING FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN82FTC03
- Event ID
- 20020917X01980
- Case number
- DEN82FTC03
- 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: e253c2a3d5a29ca294292cc66bedfc93825b0454c73173ee13a3be5634b62339; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:16:53.224Z.