ANC14LA041 · Airbus/Eurocopter AS 350 B3
Can See Aviation Airbus/Eurocopter AS 350 B3 · Accident: ground resonance while standing
From Merrill Field (MRI) to Gulkana Airport (GKN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC14LA041
- 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
Airbus/Eurocopter AS 350 B3
- Aircraft type
- Airbus/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
- N356EV
- Operator
- Can See Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merrill Field (MRI), Anchorage, AKTo Gulkana Airport (GKN), Gulkana, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2002)
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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
- Ground resonance
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been hired to ferry the recently-purchased turbine-powered helicopter to the new owner’s facility and to provide the second pilot, the new owner, with transition flight training while en route. Unable to start the helicopter, despite believing he was following the correct procedures, the first pilot enlisted help from another pilot and eventually started the helicopters engine. While the helicopter was operating at flight-idle, the yellow "TWT.GRIP" light illuminated on the annunciator panel, and the first pilot instructed the second pilot to slowly advance the collective-mounted throttle twist grip to the open position until the light went out. As the second pilot advanced the throttle, the engine speed immediately increased to a high rpm and the helicopter began to shake violently. It subsequently rotated about 240° to the left, sustaining substantial damage to the tail boom and main rotor drive system.
Examination of the engine and full authority digital engine control (FADEC) systems revealed no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation. The accident pilot reported that he had extensive experience in helicopters that had two-channel FADEC systems, but did not recall how much time he had in helicopters with single-channel FADEC systems. The accident helicopter was equipped with a single-channel FADEC system, which required a different starting procedure than an engine with a two-channel FADEC.
Given the absence of mechanical anomalies and the pilot’s unfamiliarity with the single-channel FADEC system, it is likely that he used the incorrect start and run-up procedure, which resulted in an inadvertent overspeed of the helicopter's engine and main rotor drive system.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper engine start procedure, which resulted in an overspeed of the engine and main rotor drive system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC14LA041
- Event ID
- 20140613X25958
- Case number
- ANC14LA041
- 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, cause areas. 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: b6c92dc1843c63167a17dd32c5f39ebebd5610e829ffb05eed32cc2e9f00a1d7; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:05:08.795Z.