CHI03FA179 · Eurocopter EC120B
Eurocopter EC120B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Jesse Viertel Memorial Airport (VER) to Grand Glaize Osage Beach Airport (K15)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03FA179
- 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
- 1 · 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 EC120B
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter EC120
- 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
- N298HS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jesse Viertel Memorial Airport (VER), Boonville, MOTo Grand Glaize Osage Beach Airport (K15), Osage Beach, MO
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
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 terrain during cruise flight in night instrument meteorological conditions. The pilot had previously landed due to deteriorating weather encountered along his route of flight. Thunderstorms with heavy rain and reduced visibilities were passing through the accident area. After landing, the pilot evaluated the weather and elected to continue onto his planned destination. The pilot did not obtain a FAA weather briefing prior to departing on the accident flight. The helicopter encountered instrument meteorological conditions during the accident flight. The helicopter impacted terrain while attempting to return to the departure airport. The wreckage was located 10.1nm south of the departure airport. The pilot was not instrument rated and had not logged any instrument flight time. The pilot had accumulated 8.5 hours of night experience and his last logged night flight was 10 months prior to the accident. Inspection of the wreckage did not exhibit any evidence of pre-impact malfunction that would have prevented normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate weather evaluation which resulted in his inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions. An additional cause was the pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the terrain. The dark night, thunderstorms, rain and lack of instrument rating were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03FA179
- Event ID
- 20030702X01008
- Case number
- CHI03FA179
- 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 2003-06-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1d9662bf2b4d9786b7f94e4334664ec94832c423221545303b5c4a95cb75b8c4; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:07:11.537Z.