SEA05LA120 · MBB BO-105
MBB BO-105 · Accident: hard landing
From Billings Logan International Airport (KBIL) to Billings Logan International Airport (KBIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05LA120
- 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
MBB BO-105
- Aircraft type
- MBB BO-105
- 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
- N314MS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Billings Logan International Airport (KBIL), Billings, MTTo Billings Logan International Airport (KBIL)
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
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 had just finished giving the other pilot a proficiency check, and had then taken control of the aircraft so that he could perform some maneuvers for his own proficiency. He performed one simulated engine-out autorotation to a touchdown, and was completing his second, when the accident occurred. He initiated the autorotation from about 1,000 feet above the ground (agl), and began establishing a flare attitude at an altitude of 100 feet agl. At that time he noticed that the descent rate of the helicopter was excessive, but instead of adding power along with the increase in collective, he decided to continue the simulation of the power loss. Just prior to touchdown, the pilot established a landing attitude and used all of the available collective to cushion the landing. When the helicopter touched down, the descent rate was still greater than the pilot desired, and immediately after contacting the ground, the main rotor flexed downward and contacted the top of the tail boom. The pilot reported that there were no problems with the aircraft's flight controls or engine, but the variable wind had changed directions during the descent from 1,000 feet agl, and the aircraft was therefore landing with a tailwind. In addition, the pilot states that the density altitude was approximately 5,700 feet, which left little room for error. In his discussion with the NTSB, the pilot stated that under the conditions, he should have initiated a go-around when he sensed the excessive descent rate at 100 feet agl.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight decision to continue a simulated engine-out autorotation after sensing an excessive descent rate at 100 feet above the ground. Factors include the excessive descent rate, variable winds, and a high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05LA120
- Event ID
- 20050624X00871
- Case number
- SEA05LA120
- 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: ae01f4ee3b4114165e760c2ca1a1f45eed140bdae05e78bedbfac4b07ea715e3; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:47:01.251Z.