SEA05CA200 · McDonnell Douglas 369E
Brim Aviation McDonnell Douglas 369E · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during an emergency descent
From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR) to Grants Pass Airport (3S8)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05CA200
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
McDonnell Douglas 369E
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 369
- 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
- N5207C
- Operator
- Brim Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, ORTo Grants Pass Airport (3S8), Grants Pass, OR
- 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
- Emergency descent
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Precautionary landing, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
In a written statement dated September 27, the pilot reported that he elected to make a precautionary landing after seeing an unspecified "flicker on the dash warning lights." He stated that before arriving at the spot he intended to land "fog closed in and I become disoriented and missed the spot."
Probable cause
In-flight collision with terrain during a precautionary landing. Factors include instrument meteorological conditions and pilot disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05CA200
- Event ID
- 20051007X01596
- Case number
- SEA05CA200
- 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: 755327be1f0b217db2dabae3dd9a7a4440e9eaddf5f0996101e9871c208b0f7a; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:53:30.433Z.