WPR11LA220 · MD Helicopter 369D
Airlift Helicopters of Alaska MD Helicopter 369D · Accident en route
From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
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
- WPR11LA220
- 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
MD Helicopter 369D
- Aircraft type
- MD Helicopters 369
- 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
- N124AL
- Operator
- Airlift Helicopters of Alaska
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CATo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the helicopter was in cruise flight at 12,500 feet mean sea level over mountainous terrain when power stopped being transmitted to the main rotor system. He performed an autorotation to an open area. During the landing, the tail rotor sustained damage to both blades as they went through about 1 foot of snow. After landing, the engine was still running but was not spinning the main rotor blades. Postaccident examination of the airframe revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The drive train was fully functional. The engine was run in a test cell, which confirmed that it met specifications for all parameters including performance. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of power transmission to the main rotor for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA220
- Event ID
- 20110509X10102
- Case number
- WPR11LA220
- 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: 219691b6958ae0fa53f19a42628097285618ce09441887a3cb9ebe2ab61f24c9; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:08:38.258Z.