Heli-Flite S.N.I.A.S. AS350B accident
S.N.I.A.S. AS350B · Accident: settling with power/vortex ring state during takeoff
From Tahoma, CA to Tahoma, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA324
- 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
- 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
S.N.I.A.S. AS350B
- Aircraft type
- S 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
- N3597T
- Operator
- Heli-Flite
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tahoma, CATo Tahoma, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1979)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Settling with power/vortex ring state
- 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 helicopter was being used to transport passengers and equipment for an off-road automobile event in a remote mountainous area. The airline transport pilot picked up two passengers, and the subsequent 3-minute-long inbound flight and landing into the wind at the helispot were uneventful. The pilot reported that, after a third passenger boarded, he initiated a vertical climb to clear trees. He reported that he expected and felt a "bump" as the helicopter encountered a headwind above the trees, and he then began to initiate a left turn for a downwind departure. As the turn progressed, the helicopter rapidly descended back to the ground, and, unable to maintain altitude, the pilot attempted to ditch the helicopter into trees and down-sloping terrain. The helicopter struck a rock slab and rolled onto its side, during which time both the pilot and a passenger sustained serious injuries. Postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation, and both the pilot and operator reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures.
The pilot attributed the loss of lift to a wind gust; however, the closest weather reporting station, about 14 miles away, reported light wind. Further, a weather simulation was performed to estimate wind and turbulence conditions in the area of the accident. The results revealed a low potential for turbulence with wind, which closely matched the conditions reported by the weather station, at the time and location of the accident.
The fuel load could not be definitely established; however, given the helicopter's estimated gross weight, it was likely operating very close to or slightly above its hovering ceiling. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot attempted to hover the helicopter out of ground effect at an altitude above its hovering ceiling, which resulted in it settling with power.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of helicopter control due to settling with power while maneuvering for takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA324
- Event ID
- 20140801X02351
- Case number
- WPR14FA324
- 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: 3cb5db73498d92a215e2520aec41b3f3eaaf2c105a12b06c58b26089785ea178; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:35:29.903Z.