ATL04LA055 · MBB BK117A3
C J Systems Aviation Group MBB BK117A3 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Sebring, FL to Witham Field (SUA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA055
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
MBB BK117A3
- Aircraft type
- MBB BK117
- 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
- N911WJ
- Operator
- C J Systems Aviation Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sebring, FLTo Witham Field (SUA), Stuart, FL
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, encountered
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 was conducting a night positioning flight and encountered instrument flight conditions. The pilot did not follow company procedures for instrument flight conditions, and lost control of the helicopter due to spatial disorientation. The helicopter entered a spiraling decent and collided with trees and ground. There were no mechanical anomalies with the helicopter. The pilot had logged 200 hours total time in the make and model helicopter, and no actual instrument time in any type of helicopter except for simulated instrument flight time. According to the company written procedures the pilot was required to follow the checklist which stated in part, "Fly the aircraft, climb to altitude, do not get in a hurry, and contact approach or center."
Probable cause
The pilot continued visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions and experienced spatial disorientation, loss of aircraft control, and in-flight collision with trees and terrain. Factors in the accident were the pilot's failure to follow company procedures, total lack of instrument flight time, and a dark night.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA055
- Event ID
- 20031219X02060
- Case number
- ATL04LA055
- 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 2003-12-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f3cf23ce1ae093b3d35333b515db41d655308fe41ed6625fa53e7ca46d9698d9; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:18:45.822Z.