ATL05FA038 · Aerospatiale AS350-D
Air Methods Aerospatiale AS350-D · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Felkner, MS to Tupelo, MS
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05FA038
- 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
Aerospatiale AS350-D
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale 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
- N350RM
- Operator
- Air Methods
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Felkner, MSTo Tupelo, MS
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
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 collided with trees and the ground while flying level with rising terrain during low cloud and low visibility condition. The pilot had earlier flown to a highway accident site in order to transport injured persons to the hospital. During the attempted loading of the injured persons, the chin bubble of the helicopter was damaged, and consequently the flight was canceled. The injured persons were ground transported by ambulance. A mechanic was dispatched to the site and he encountered moderate rain and gusty winds while en route. The mechanic made a temporary repair to the damaged area of the helicopter. According to the mechanic, the pilot indicated the site was a flood area and with a forecast of more rain, he preferred to move the helicopter. The mechanic suggested to the pilot that he relocate the aircraft locally to a school or hospital after first hovering after lift off and evaluating the weather. The mechanic would then drive the pilot from the relocation site to the destination. The pilot did not acknowledge his suggestion and made a walk-around inspection of the helicopter, and checked his flight charts for obstructions. The pilot started the helicopter and departed. There is no record that the pilot obtained a weather briefing by radio or by cell phone before departing the accident site. The wreckage was located the following morning. Doxylamine, a sedating over-the-counter antihistamine used in sleep aids and multi-symptom cold relievers, was found in the pilot's blood on toxicological examination. Pseudoephedrine, a decongestant available in many multi-symptom cold relievers, was also found in the pilot's blood.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to attempt VFR flight into known instrument flight conditions and failure to maintain altitude clearance resulted in an in-flight collision with trees and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05FA038
- Event ID
- 20050111X00036
- Case number
- ATL05FA038
- 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 2005-01-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ede14655ff5953a1f70cd927c576c8bf31d3625e20147fc4e2869057c32b6984; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:09:45.841Z.