DEN05LA053 · Eurocopter AS 350 B3
Eurocopter AS 350 B3 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Espanola, NM to Taos, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05LA053
- 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 AS 350 B3
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS-350
- 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
- N351LG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Espanola, NMTo Taos, NM
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, improper use of
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 pilot was conducting a positioning flight in night visual meteorological conditions, wearing night vision goggles. He was following the road separating the place of departure and his destination. He could see the vehicle traffic and the surrounding terrain clearly. Approximately 15 minutes into the flight, he felt that something was wrong. The attitude indicator showed that the helicopter was in a 60-70 degree left descending turn. The altimeters and airspeed indicators showed the same trend. The pilot attempted to correct the flight attitude, but became disoriented. The helicopter impacted terrain and rolled onto its right side. A postimpact fire destroyed the helicopter.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter, and his improper use of night vision goggles (NVG). Contributing factors were the pilot's spatial disorientation, his self-induced pressure to return the helicopter to its home base, his lack of experience in the use of NVG's, his use of exterior lights on a dark night light, under overcast skies, and against snow-covered terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05LA053
- Event ID
- 20050209X00160
- Case number
- DEN05LA053
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 2005-01-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d28ed1afff7d733db51740b5588e8efcfb983e326858c3496cb527033021d8c8; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:19:07.122Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The helicopter impacted terrain and rolled onto its right side. A postimpact fire destroyed the helicopter."