CHI05CA005 · Buss Rotorway Exec
Buss Rotorway Exec · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05CA005
- 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
Buss Rotorway Exec
- Aircraft type
- Buss ROTORWAY EXEC
- 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
- N82DR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM), Eden Prairie, MNTo not recorded
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 › Miscellaneous, inadvertent deactivation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental amateur-built helicopter sustained substantial damage on impact with terrain during an autorotation following an in-flight loss of engine power while on its base leg. The pilot stated in his accident report, "I was given clearance for the option and on the base leg I reached for, and pulled, the carburetor heat lever. After releasing the lever, I inadvertently bumped and threw the main battery switch. I felt the switch move. (These switches are located on the top of the center console, and they are hidden from view by the pilot's right leg due to cramped quarters). I then tried to find and reengage the switch and I threw the avionics switch. I immediately re-engaged the avionics switch. While searching for the battery switch, the engine stopped. ... Due to forward groundspeed, the helicopter slid forward and tipped forward. The rotor blades struck the ground in the front of the ship, which created torque forces, which tipped the machine onto its left side. " The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions in reference to the helicopter on the flight. The pilot's safety recommendation was that the "battery switch should be relocated or [guarded]."
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent deactivation of the battery switch leading to the helicopter's loss of engine power on base leg. A factor was the crops he encountered during the emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA005
- Event ID
- 20041014X01623
- Case number
- CHI05CA005
- 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: 84eab51bbc03deeaaa422832230e9cc24a784274e5cb1aa0134469fb1aff35c3; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:37:41.045Z.