DEN05LA068 · Enstrom F-28C
Enstrom F-28C · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC) to Morrison, CO (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05LA068
- 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
Enstrom F-28C
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F-28
- 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
- N5690K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), Broomfield, COTo Morrison, CO (private airstrip)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, 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
After performing two approaches and landings to a helipad, the pilot and pilot-rated passenger elected to fly to another helipad. The pilot-rated passenger, who was also a rotorcraft flight instructor, performed an approach to a hover above the helipad without incident. After the helicopter departed the helipad, the pilot then attempted an approach to the helipad. During a steep approach to a helipad, the helicopter descended below the helipad, which was an elevated concrete surface. The pilot increased collective, the rotor RPM began to droop, and the helicopter landed short of the helipad. During the landing, the helicopter impacted the side of the helipad and sustained substantial damage. Examination of the helicopter revealed the firewall and lower fuselage were crushed and the left skid was collapsed.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain rotor RPM during the approach which resulted in a landing short of the helipad.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05LA068
- Event ID
- 20050427X00511
- Case number
- DEN05LA068
- 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: 711cd0d35c86ee3db5cf0b309d12b84f78d19f65f2be8084e429a5ef70024ac0; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:04:59.228Z.