WPR10CA028 · Eurocopter AS 350 B3
Air Methods Eurocopter AS 350 B3 · Accident: hard landing
From Pinal Airpark (MZJ) to Pinal Airpark (MZJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10CA028
- 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 B3
- 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
- N105LN
- Operator
- Air Methods
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pinal Airpark (MZJ), Marana, AZTo Pinal Airpark (MZJ), Marana, AZ
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a practice hovering autorotation the helicopter impacted terrain, which resulted in substantial damage to the tailboom. The left seat check pilot who was giving instruction to the right seat pilot reported that a clear, flat area had been identified for hovering autorotation practice. After being briefed by the check pilot, the right seat pilot brought the helicopter up to a 3- to 5-foot hover. The check pilot stated, "I reminded the pilot that he would retard the throttle. [The] aircraft drifted up to less than 10 feet, [and] before I could correct the altitude deviation the [right seat] pilot aggressively retarded the throttle. The aircraft was allowed to settle to approximately 4 feet before the collective pull was initiated, but I was unable to sufficiently arrest the descent." An examination of the helicopter by a Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness inspector revealed that the tailboom had been wrinkled as a result of the impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The improper use of the throttle by the pilot receiving instruction, and the check pilot's inadequate supervision and delayed remedial action, which resulted in the collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10CA028
- Event ID
- 20091022X74024
- Case number
- WPR10CA028
- 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. 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: 4b2f9d474dc259f1b05420a933c85bafc9896262c6c6c80980db783b3a0bf00d; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:25:59.429Z.