DEN04CA058 · Eurocopter France EC 130 B4
Air Methods Eurocopter France EC 130 B4 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From FTG · Watkins, CO to FTG · Watkins, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04CA058
- 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
Eurocopter France EC 130 B4
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter EC-130
- 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
- N151AC
- Operator
- Air Methods
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FTG · Watkins, COTo FTG · Watkins, CO
- 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 · hover
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Dual student › Aircraft control, 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 instructor pilot reported that he was conducting a commercial checkride. He and the dual student, flying the helicopter, were in a hover approximately 4-5 feet above the ground and oriented on a 190-degree heading. While at that location, the helicopter began to yaw and drift to the left. The instructor pilot said he put in opposite pedal but the helicopter continued to yaw and drift to the left. The helicopter struck the ground, left skid low on a 30 to 45 degree down angle. The instructor said he took control of the helicopter and attempted to maintain a level attitude. The helicopter bounced and then struck nose low and rolled to the right. An examination of the helicopter systems revealed no anomalies. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector on the scene said conditions were very windy. He also said that when considering the wind conditions and the way the helicopter impacted the ground, the winds may have contributed to the accident. The wind conditions reported just before the accident were 190 degrees at 8 knots with gusts to 15 knots.
Probable cause
the dual student pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter. Factors contributing to the accident were inadequate supervision by the instructor pilot, the high wind, the gusts, and the crosswinds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04CA058
- Event ID
- 20040504X00551
- Case number
- DEN04CA058
- 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: 95bbfb2353f18efc45ec496b585ce885875980f0b9252c3515e483bd12ef7bfb; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:46:00.956Z.