CEN15TA017 · Airbus Helicopters AS 350 B3
Airbus Helicopters AS 350 B3 · Accident: dynamic rollover during takeoff
From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN) to Deming Municipal Airport (DMN)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15TA017
- 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
- 0
- 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
- Government
- 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 Helicopters AS 350 B3
- Aircraft type
- Airbus 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
- N852BP
- Operator
- US Customs and Border Protection
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN), Deming, NMTo Deming Municipal Airport (DMN), Deming, NM
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter departed from level terrain and then drifted backward. The aft right skid then contacted a rock that was embedded in the ground, which resulted in the helicopter pivoting around the rock, the rotor blades impacting the ground, and the helicopter rolling over onto its right side. Examination of wreckage revealed no anomalies with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation. A review of data from the vehicle engine multifunction display revealed that all of the recorded failures were associated with the ground impact and that no preimpact anomalies occurred. The evidence is consistent with a dynamic rollover event.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate drift control and skid clearance from the ground during takeoff, which resulted in a dynamic rollover when the aft right skid contacted a rock.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15TA017
- Event ID
- 20141020X13547
- Case number
- CEN15TA017
- 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: eea9010442241a0116d2b3c7e2a30a0a9388ea382e55c09585c4d5fa72b19c7b; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:52:04.718Z.