ERA15WA180 · Bell 206 - L4
Asesorías e Inversiones Santa Francisca Bell 206 - L4 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From Chamonate Airport (SCHA) to Copiapo (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15WA180
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 4 · 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
Bell 206 - L4
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- CC-APP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chamonate Airport (SCHA), CopiapoTo Copiapo (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On March 31, 2015, about 2210 universal coordinated time (UTC), a Bell 206L4, Chilean registration CC-APP, operated by a private individual, was destroyed during a collision with power lines and a subsequent postcrash fire, while maneuvering near Diego de Almagro, Chile. The foreign certificated private pilot and three passengers were fatally injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a visual flight rules flight plan was filed for the private flight that departed Aerodromo Chamonate, Copiapo, Chile; destined for the Wara Resort Heliport, Copiapo, Chile.
At 1901 UTC, the pilot reported to air traffic control that he had the destination heliport in sight. The pilot then changed radio frequencies and no further communications were received from the accident helicopter. The helicopter was located 2 days later in a mountainous about 37 kilometers east of Diego de Almagro, Chile.
This investigation is under the jurisdiction of the Government of Chile. Any further information can be obtained from:
Director of Accident Prevention Analysis Office Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics Elena Blanco #1050, Providencia, Santiago de Chile 7541084
This report is for informational purposes, and contains only information released by the Government of Chile.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15WA180
- Event ID
- 20150408X54634
- Case number
- ERA15WA180
- 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.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c693937ec0bfc503dd117f62e6ff6754c97b0b9cefd2fc90e4d6ff825c74fef5; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:34:57.454Z.