CEN14LA326 · Aerospatiale AS350B
Pay Jay Air Aerospatiale AS350B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Artesia Municipal Airport (ATS) to Mayhill, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA326
- 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
Aerospatiale AS350B
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS350
- 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
- N69PJ
- Operator
- Pay Jay Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Artesia Municipal Airport (ATS), Artesia, NMTo Mayhill, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1991)
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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 commercial pilot was conducting a personal flight. Weather reports indicated that strong, gusting wind conditions existed around the time that the pilot initiated the flight; the pilot was aware of the conditions. About 1/2 hour later, upon reaching the destination, the pilot initiated a go-around due to the strong, gusting wind; the wind direction varied from a headwind to a 90-degree crosswind. After reaching an altitude of 300 to 500 ft above ground level and an airspeed of 50 to 55 knots, the pilot initiated a turn, at which time the helicopter encountered either a strong gust or "ground twister," which resulted in the helicopter nosing down 15 to 20 degrees. The pilot leveled the helicopter's nose but was unable to stop the helicopter from descending. The helicopter impacted terrain, bounced 10 to 15 ft, and then impacted terrain again.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain helicopter control while performing a go-around in strong, gusting wind conditions. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to initiate the flight in strong, gusting wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA326
- Event ID
- 20140630X02301
- Case number
- CEN14LA326
- 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: ab4f2ca455b59c908e1112057061a85ebfd1bae1e5bded302e3faa5ff353511f; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:30:22.153Z.