Heli Austria McDonnell Douglas MD900 accident
McDonnell Douglas MD900 · Accident: dynamic rollover during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17RA377
- 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
- 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
- Not recorded
McDonnell Douglas MD900
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD900
- 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
- OE-XWF
- Operator
- Heli Austria
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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., 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On August 1, 2017, at 1815 UTC, a McDonnell Douglas MD 900 Helicopter, Austrian registration OE-XWF, impacted mountainous terrain about 8 miles west-northwest of Heiligenblut, Austria. One medical crewmember sustained minor injuries. The pilot, the other medical crewmember, and passenger on board were not injured and the helicopter was substantially damaged. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the local, emergency medical services flight that originated at Matrei-Osttirol Heliport, Austria.The helicopter had been dispatched to airlift a tourist with a medical emergency from a lodge near the summit of Mount Grossglockner, at 11,630 ft. MSL. During takeoff from the lodge location, the helicopter started an uncommanded yaw to the right. It subsequently struck the ground and rolled over coming to rest on its right side.
This investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the Austrian government. Any further information may be obtained from:
Austrian Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority Trauzlgasse 1, A-1210 Vienna Austria Telephone: +43 171162/659209 E-mail: fus@bmvit.gv.at
This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information released by, or obtained from, the Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority of Austria.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17RA377
- Event ID
- 20171031X31232
- Case number
- CEN17RA377
- 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: coordinates. 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: 37be53be16553d554f5e0eb62a0a04973e7afed173ff285a4cfe0d59a1f3d85c; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:58:41.758Z.