WPR10FA055 · Aerospatiale AS350BA
Aerospatiale AS350BA · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Reno, NV to Susanville Municipal Airport (SVE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA055
- 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
- 3 · 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
Aerospatiale AS350BA
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS350
- 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
- N5793P
- Operator
- Mountain Lifeflight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno, NVTo Susanville Municipal Airport (SVE), Susanville, CA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Ten minutes after dropping off a patient at the local hospital and while returning to home base in dark night conditions, the flight crew made a routine position report. About 8 minutes later, the flight crew transmitted that the helicopter was going down.
Radar data indicated that after departure from the hospital, the helicopter initiated a climb from about 4,500 feet mean sea level (msl) and established a northwesterly course. In the vicinity of the accident site, the target indicated a climbing turn to the northeast followed by a turn to the southwest, and then a climbing turn back to the northeast. The last two targets indicated a turn to the right. The last recorded altitude was at 10,200 feet msl.
On-site documentation of the wreckage suggested that the helicopter was in a nose-low attitude and about a 90-degree bank angle when it contacted the ground.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
A study of the weather conditions in the vicinity of the accident site indicated clouds were present with tops reaching about 13,000 feet msl. Light clear icing was present with the potential for moderate clear icing in or near clouds. Visibility was at or greater than 10 statute miles.
Given the helicopter’s flight path shortly before the accident, it is likely that the pilot was maneuvering to avoid clouds and became disorientated in the dark night conditions, which resulted in a loss of helicopter control.
Probable cause
The pilot became spatially disoriented while maneuvering on a dark night, which resulted in a loss of helicopter control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA055
- Event ID
- 20091114X82100
- Case number
- WPR10FA055
- 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: 99c1b32c6f71ef571813204a2bb1bc8068f62106c26c0cb1aefb45e93c94b779; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:33:46.653Z.