FTW03LA106 · Eurocopter AS350B2
Taylor Energy Eurocopter AS350B2 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Lakefront Airport (NEW) to Goma International Airport (GOM)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA106
- 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
- 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
Eurocopter AS350B2
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS350
- 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
- N945PT
- Operator
- Taylor Energy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakefront Airport (NEW), New Orleans, LATo Goma International Airport (GOM), MS Canyon 20, GM
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 › Directional control, not possible
- Rotor system, tail rotor › Not engaged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter impacted water while maneuvering in a turn. The 16,000-hour pilot stated that a weather brief was obtained prior to departure, and the weather reported at Venice, Louisiana, near the intended destination was 2 1/2 statute miles visibility, with increasing visibilities and sky conditions improving. At approximately 0715 and 40 nautical miles northwest Boothville, Louisiana, deteriorating weather conditions developed. The pilot elected to execute a right turn and descend to an altitude where weather conditions were better, and sight of water was evident. At a slow rate of speed "estimated no faster than a walk," the tail rotor struck the water. The aircraft yawed to the left and a ditching maneuver was entered while close to the water at a slow speed. The aircraft impacted the water on its left side and immediately filled with water. Weather conditions at NEW at 0653 were reported as winds calm, visibility 1/2 statute mile, ceiling indefinite at 100 feet, and fog. Weather conditions at Boothville, Louisiana (BVE), 40 nautical miles northwest of the accident site, at 0751, were reported as winds from 180 degrees at 3 knots, visibility 1/4 statute mile, ceiling indefinite at 100 feet, and fog.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain directional control following a loss of tail rotor drive. A contributing factor was the fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA106
- Event ID
- 20030310X00307
- Case number
- FTW03LA106
- 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, 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: 85370a16285258143761c834f87b376ebc579b227c5acd855986c8d59a9daaad; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:31:47.433Z.