Air Methods MD Helicopter Inc MD 900 accident
MD Helicopter Inc MD 900 · Accident on approach
From Springfield, MO to Springfield, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA066
- 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
MD Helicopter Inc MD 900
- Aircraft type
- MD Helicopters MD-900
- 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
- N902LC
- Operator
- Air Methods
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Springfield, MOTo Springfield, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was executing an off-airport landing during night visual meteorological conditions at the time of the accident. The pilot reported that he had completed two orbits of the area and had selected a large nearby field as the landing site. As the helicopter descended to about 20 ft above ground level, the pilot observed a set of power lines paralleling the helicopter's flightpath that he had not identified during the initial orbits of the landing area. He attempted to move the helicopter left to avoid the power lines, but the main rotor blades inadvertently struck one of them. The pilot maintained control of the helicopter and landed it safely. A postaccident examination revealed substantial damage to three of the main rotor blades. The remaining two rotor blades sustained minor damage. The pilot did not report any failures or malfunctions with the helicopter before impacting the power lines.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to identify the power line during the initial approach in night visual meteorological conditions and his subsequent failure to avoid the power line once he identified it on final approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA066
- Event ID
- 20141204X91829
- Case number
- CEN15LA066
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-11-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a2eba78efe99d74735c98d915a77c067e353ca6081f9f3ac3cb2eb8f2c4764e9; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:57:43.994Z.