ERA Med Eurocopter Deutschland Gmbh MBB-BK 117 C-1 incident
Eurocopter Deutschland Gmbh MBB-BK 117 C-1 · Incident: fire/smoke (non-impact) on approach
From Oak Bluffs, MA to Brigham & Women's Hospital Heliport (MA39)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11IA091
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 Deutschland Gmbh MBB-BK 117 C-1
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter MBB-BK 117 C-1
- 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
- N271NE
- Operator
- ERA Med
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oak Bluffs, MATo Brigham & Women's Hospital Heliport (MA39), Boston, MA
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- 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
During the air ambulance flight, the helicopter was on final approach to land when smoke and flames were observed emanating from the suction control mounted on the left side of the cabin. The fire was subsequently extinguished, and the pilot landed the helicopter without further incident. Postincident examination revealed fire damage on the face of an overhead medical cabinet that was part of a medical interior installed about 7.5 years prior to the incident per a supplemental type certificate. A sheathed wiring bundle for a 120-volt alternating current power outlet mounted in the aft end of the cabinet displayed chafing damage and arcing consistent with rubbing on the metal housing for the vacuum control switch. The wiring was installed without adequate clearance or support to prevent it from chafing on the switch housing. The helicopter was maintained under an approved inspection program; however, review of the instructions for continued airworthiness associated with the medical cabinet installation did not reveal any required inspections of the associated wiring harnesses for general condition or chafing.
Probable cause
Improper installation of wiring associated with a medical cabinet interior, which resulted in chafing and a subsequent in-flight fire. Contributing to the incident was inadequate maintenance procedures for continued airworthiness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11IA091
- Event ID
- 20101215X62006
- Case number
- ERA11IA091
- 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: 89d0375f18eca50dee4b870f501bd0e1e38ac5bd2a9bc415f1c34f93c77aea61; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:37:36.417Z.