NYC05LA145 · Eurocopter Deutschland BK-117-B2
Omniflight Helicopters Eurocopter Deutschland BK-117-B2 · Accident: hard landing
From The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU) to The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC05LA145
- 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 Deutschland BK-117-B2
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter BK-117
- 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
- N117MK
- Operator
- Omniflight Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU), Columbus, OHTo The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU), Columbus, OH
- 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 › Aircraft control, 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
The pilot reported he was returning to land from a local flight when he noticed another helicopter hovering on the ramp, and elected to alter his approach away from the other helicopter, with the intent of landing southwest of the ramp. He flew parallel to runways 27 left and right, leveled off at 50 feet, and began a right turn to approach the ramp from the west. The pilot added that he observed a kneeboard fall from the co-pilot's side of the helicopter, and land near the cyclic control boot. He tried to straighten the helicopter; however, the cyclic control felt "stiff," and could only be moved slightly to the left or aft. The helicopter continued to descend, and landed hard. A helicopter pilot, who witnessed the accident, stated that the helicopter's approach was fast, steep, and conducted with a tailwind. Examination of the helicopter, and its associated hydraulic control system, did not reveal any preimpact malfunctions. In addition, attempts to restrict the cyclic control movement by positioning the kneeboard at various locations around the cyclic control could not be duplicated. A weather observation taken at the airport, about the time of the accident, reported winds from 190 degrees at 12 knots. The pilot reported that at the time of the accident, the wind sock was "limp."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing. A factor associated with this accident was a tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC05LA145
- Event ID
- 20051003X01562
- Case number
- NYC05LA145
- 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: db96e280d92e7d4559701de46874b9b1de1a33a140fecb422ab92e63662b6c2a; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:20:57.883Z.