Inaer Helicopter Chile Beech 300 LW accident
Beech 300 LW · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From President Carlos Ibáñez International Airport (SCCI) to Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCEL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12WA249
- 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
- Final · DGAC final report
- API-reported fatalities
- 8 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Beech 300 LW
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 300
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- CC-AEB
- Operator
- Inaer Helicopter Chile
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From President Carlos Ibáñez International Airport (SCCI), Punta ArenasTo Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCEL), Santiago
- 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
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On March 22, 2012, at 0358 UTC, a Beech BE 300, Chilean registration CC-AEB registered to Banco Popular Espanol, S.A. and operated by Inaer Helicopter Chile SA as an air ambulance flight, departed controlled flight at Flight level 280 while in radio contact with Puerto Montt Radio. The airplane was last observed on radar in a spiraling descent about 6 miles north northeast of Puerto Aguirre, Chile, at 7,700 feet. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. An instrument flight plan was filed. The airline transport rated pilot in command, first officer, and six passengers were fatally injured. The flight departed Punta Arenas, Chile, at 0218 UTC en-route to Santiago, Chile. The airplane was located on the north face of Maca Volcano on March 25, 2012, in the vicinity of the last radar contact.
The accident investigation is under the jurisdiction of the Government of Chile. Further information may be obtained from:
Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics Chile Elena Blanco # 1050 Providencia, Chile 7500000 Telephone: 011 56 02 410 7399 Fax: 011 56 02 410 7632
This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information obtained for or released by the Government of Chile.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12WA249
- Event ID
- 20120323X64925
- Case number
- ERA12WA249
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 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: dd6ff193f0c650acc005c0e60aad86e4afa4d32dc55ba69d8f5ffd1623df4c97; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:16:13.987Z.
- Checked against the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (DGAC), Departamento Prevención de Accidentes, Chile final report on 2026-09-18. The report states the same date, fatalities, registration, departure, destination and damage. Taken from the report: ground fatalities. Not checked: place, crash-site coordinates, flight number, aircraft type, operator and type of operation.