FTW03FA082 · Agusta A-109-K2
Agusta A-109-K2 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Salt Lake City, UT to Wendover, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03FA082
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Agusta A-109-K2
- Aircraft type
- Agusta A-109
- 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
- N601RX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City, UTTo Wendover, UT
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering low to the ground during night conditions, the air ambulance helicopter encountered fog and poor weather conditions, and impacted the terrain. Shortly after departing from its hospital base, the helicopter was cleared by air traffic control to proceed through a major airport's airspace to respond to a medical emergency. After crossing through the airspace, the pilot elected to abort the mission; however, he was instructed by air traffic control to hold and wait for clearance through the airspace due to landing traffic at the airport. After holding for approximately 10 minutes, the pilot stated, "I'm basically inadvertent IMC at this time and declaring emergency...I'm currently on a heading one five zero." Examination of the accident site revealed the helicopter impacted the terrain on a heading of 150 degrees, became airborne for approximately 1/4 mile, then impacted the terrain and came to rest upright in a grassy field. According to documents provided by the operator, the pilot had accumulated a total of 311 simulated instrument flight time, and 3 hours of actual instrument flight time. Examination of the helicopter revealed no evidence of an in-flight control or system malfunction prior to the initial impact. Prior to the accident helicopter's departure from the hospital base, another air ambulance company helicopter attempted the same mission; however, aborted the mission due to fog and deteriorating weather conditions.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed remedial action and continued flight into known adverse weather conditions which resulted in his failure to maintain clearance with the ground. Contributing factors were the prevailing fog, and the pressure to complete the mission induced by the pilot in command as a result of the air ambulance operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03FA082
- Event ID
- 20030117X00084
- Case number
- FTW03FA082
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-01-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a168ca80350d9a4cd2e6d03c51bbfae12415acab16a9963cf5959cf5548480c7; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:31:42.894Z.