ANC08LA076 · Eurocopter AS-350 BA
Last Frontier Air Ventures Eurocopter AS-350 BA · Accident: settling with power/vortex ring state while maneuvering
From Sutton, AK to Chickaloon, AK
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC08LA076
- 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 AS-350 BA
- 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
- N357CH
- Operator
- Last Frontier Air Ventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sutton, AKTo Chickaloon, AK
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- Defining eventThe 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
- Settling with power/vortex ring state
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to the accident flight, the pilot transported several students from the National Outdoor Leadership School and their equipment to a remote glacier camp at about 8,950 feet mean sea level (msl). During that flight, the main rotor rpm dropped enough to sound the low rotor speed warning horn for a few seconds. At a staging area, in preparation for the accident flight, the pilot prepared an external load of about 400 pounds of equipment in a net to be attached to the bottom of the helicopter by a 50-foot-long line. The pilot then lifted off into an out-of-ground-effect hover (HOGE) to assess the required power, and noted that he needed about 70 percent power to maintain a hover. He then flew to the top of the glacier with the external cargo net; upon arrival at the upper camp, he established a 75-foot hover while pulling maximum power. He then reduced power to lower the cargo net to the snow. The pilot said that he reduced power too much and that the helicopter began to descend rapidly. He said that he felt a small vibration, reminiscent of entering the vortex ring produced by the main rotors. The vibration then smoothed out, but the helicopter was descending quickly. The pilot applied power but did not release the external load. The helicopter collided with snow and rolled onto its right side. The helicopter's gross weight at the time of the accident, including the external load, fuel, and the weight of the pilot and passenger, was about 4,286 pounds. At that weight, the helicopter should have been capable of an HOGE of about 9,500 feet msl.
Probable cause
The pilot's incorrect actions during an out-of ground-effect hover, which resulted in the helicopter entering a main rotor ring vortex state, and a settling with power condition, producing an excessive descent rate and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC08LA076
- Event ID
- 20080630X00954
- Case number
- ANC08LA076
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: b5722aa0361ac5b54e7a0479c7daa4ad24193b18c495e208132ca7e350f5a718; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:50:26.391Z.