WPR13LA334 · Eurocopter AS 350 B2
Sundance Helicopters Eurocopter AS 350 B2 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Harry Reid International Airport (KLAS) to Harry Reid International Airport (KLAS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA334
- 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 B2
- 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
- N115SH
- Operator
- Sundance Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harry Reid International Airport (KLAS), Las Vegas, NVTo Harry Reid International Airport (KLAS), Las Vegas, 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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 › 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
The purpose of the flight was to provide the helicopter-rated pilot with "differences" training in a helicopter that is flown from the left seat instead of the standard right seat. The helicopter did not have dual controls, and the instructor was seated in a rear seat, observing over the student's shoulder.
The instructor reported that the pilot over controlled the helicopter as it picked up to a hover, and the helicopter moved fore and aft with a slight yaw. The helicopter continued to move fore and aft and the yaw increased. The pilot receiving instruction reported that the nose yawed to the left, the helicopter started to "jump," and she lowered the collective to put the helicopter on the ground. The condition worsened, and she picked the helicopter up to a hover as instructed; however, she was unable to maintain control of the helicopter, and the tail rotor hit the ground. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation were reported. Because the helicopter did not have dual controls, the flight instructor was unable to take action to regain control.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction's failure to maintain control of the helicopter in a hover, which resulted in a tail rotor ground strike.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA334
- Event ID
- 20130722X23613
- Case number
- WPR13LA334
- 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: cd3b63c0bfe8b10ab2fad77dd54231a46811f3d5967563b935a2e496179ac663; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:16:34.183Z.