Bear Helicopters Aerospatiale SA341G accident
Aerospatiale SA341G · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Alpine, TX (no airport) to Marfa Municipal Airport (MRF)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA105
- 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
- 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
Aerospatiale SA341G
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale SA341
- 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
- N16KH
- Operator
- Bear Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alpine, TX (no airport)To Marfa Municipal Airport (MRF), Marfa, TX
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Pilot in command › Translational lift, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot flew the helicopter to a mountain top and landed at an elevation of 5,000 feet msl. After a short time, the passengers and pilot reboarded the helicopter for the return flight. The pilot reported that during takeoff, as the helicopter entered translational lift, it encountered a gust of wind from the rear. Subsequently, the helicopter entered an uncontrolled descent and impacted terrain. The helicopter came to rest in a shallow creek.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain translational lift, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent of the helicopter during takeoff. A contributing factor was the gusty tailwind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA105
- Event ID
- 20030310X00303
- Case number
- FTW03LA105
- 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: investigation status, coordinates. 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: 22ccc377f7ce517fff45db011c70cb3bcccec61ea7a9dc81a0ad125d2a569393; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:54:27.489Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N16KH; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.