ATL06CA026 · Eurocopter France AS-350-B2
Eurocopter France AS-350-B2 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From 3M2 · Double Springs, AL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06CA026
- 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 France AS-350-B2
- 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
- N350ET
- Operator
- Robert L. Banks · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3M2 · Double Springs, ALTo not recorded
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, 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 was in cruise flight at 400 feet AGL looking for a bridge that crossed a river. The pilot stated that he did not maintain a visual look out and was not familiar with the area. Examination of the accident site revealed the helicopter collided with an overhead ground wire near Black Water Creek in-between Alabama Power Structure 51 and 52. The pilot stated that he maintained control of the helicopter, and flew the helicopter to his house and landed. Examination of the helicopter revealed it received structural damage to the nose, windscreen, lower chin bubble, overhead window, left door post and cabin roof. The pilot called an employee on a cell phone. The employee met him at his house after landing the helicopter and transported the pilot to a local area hospital. The pilot's right middle finger was amputated due to injuries sustained during the wire strike. The passenger was not injured. The pilot stated the helicopter did not have any mechanical problems before the in-flight collision with the power lines.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a visual look out, and proper altitude clearance during a low level flight, resulting in an in-flight collision with a power line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06CA026
- Event ID
- 20060106X00017
- Case number
- ATL06CA026
- 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: 506c1a62eeb8c0f7f9da57bb4ed9e5fc6d3ba8583d609d8590a6de631f5bc2c4; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:01:10.249Z.