GAA16LA325 · MD Helicopter 369E 500
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources MD Helicopter 369E 500 · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From Saint Cloud Regional Airport (STC) to Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport (BRD)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16LA325
- 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
- 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
MD Helicopter 369E 500
- Aircraft type
- MD Helicopters 369
- 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
- N155NR
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saint Cloud Regional Airport (STC), ST CLOUD, MNTo Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport (BRD), Brainerd, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2015)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that, during an aerial observation flight near known thunderstorms, the right center windscreen shattered. The pilot sustained multiple facial lacerations, but he was able to land the helicopter near a highway without further incident. The pilot reported that he did not see anything strike the windscreen and found no evidence of a bird strike.
Examination of the helicopter revealed that debris from the windscreen substantially damaged two of the main rotor blades and the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer. Examination of the windscreen and its frame revealed evidence of cracking that originated in the center of the windscreen and propagated outward, consistent with impact forces from outside the helicopter.
DNA from samples taken from portions of the windscreen matched DNA from a Western Kingbird; however, given the extent of the damage to the windscreen, the small size of the Western Kingbird, and the pilot's statement, it is likely that this DNA was due to a previous bird strike and did not result in the failure of the windscreen. Therefore, the reason for the windscreen failure could not be determined.
Probable cause
The failure of the helicopter’s windscreen for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information, which resulted in substantial damage to the main rotor blades and horizontal stabilizer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16LA325
- Event ID
- 20160623X22855
- Case number
- GAA16LA325
- 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: ca0035b27208f514fa2eef2eb8bbaa12c63c38385545d131a1111c0590857e61; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:32:47.475Z.