CEN14IA329 · Eurocopter AS 350 B3
Air Methods Eurocopter AS 350 B3 · Incident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Draughon Miller Central Texas Regional Airport (TPL) to Hamilton, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14IA329
- 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
- Incident
- 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 B3
- 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
- N808LF
- Operator
- Air Methods
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Draughon Miller Central Texas Regional Airport (TPL), Temple, TXTo Hamilton, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2010)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an uneventful emergency medical services flight, the commercial pilot landed the helicopter at an airport to refuel for the return flight to the helicopter's base. The pilot reported that his preflight checks were normal and that, immediately after takeoff, the helicopter started a counter-clockwise yaw. He added that the antitorque pedals were locked in the neutral position and felt jammed. He attempted to correct the rotation but was unable to do so. After the helicopter rotated several times, he descended it from about 15 to 4 to 5 ft and then executed a hovering autorotation. The helicopter hit the ground on its right front skid and then slid upright to a stop.
A postincident examination of the helicopter revealed no anomalies with its tail rotor and hydraulic systems. However, the yaw servo hydraulic switch on the collective was found in the "off" position even though the pretakeoff dual hydraulic system check requires that the yaw servo hydraulic switch be moved to the "off" position and then moved back to the "on" position before takeoff. After this incident, the helicopter manufacturer issued a safety information notice, which stated that, if the pilot fails to move the yaw servo hydraulic switch back to the "on" position before takeoff, there will be a complete lack of hydraulic boost to the tail rotor system because, before this part of the check, the yaw load compensator would have been discharged to verify proper operation of the hydraulic accumulator test switch and valve. This situation could be perceived by the pilot as a tail rotor control failure due to the increased load required to move the control pedals. If not quickly identified and corrected, this situation could lead to a loss of helicopter control, as occurred during the accident flight.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to reposition the yaw servo hydraulic switch to the “on” position during the pretakeoff hydraulic system check, which resulted in a complete lack of hydraulic boost to the tail rotor system and increased the load required to move the control pedals and led to the pilot’s subsequent inability to manipulate the control pedals and his loss of yaw control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14IA329
- Event ID
- 20140630X31517
- Case number
- CEN14IA329
- 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: 1de63a190b1e29f1b13b1f6e44d6654ea88ff3b182e4b55795c08a4850d08bcd; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:46:27.186Z.