Coastal Helicopters Aerospatiale AS350 B2 ECUREUIL accident
Aerospatiale AS350 B2 ECUREUIL · Accident while standing
From Juneau International Airport (JNU) to Yakutat, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA289
- 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
Aerospatiale AS350 B2 ECUREUIL
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS350
- 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
- N288CH
- Operator
- Coastal Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Juneau International Airport (JNU), Juneau, AKTo Yakutat, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 28 years (built 1990)
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter pilot reported that, during startup on an off-airport landing pad, the helicopter was facing into the wind, and the airspeed indicator was showing gusting wind conditions. As the blades began to turn, he felt a strong wind gust and heard a loud bang almost simultaneously, and the helicopter "lurched" to the right about 5°. He immediately aborted the start procedure and applied the rotor brake.
Postaccident examination revealed that the helicopter's main rotor blade had struck the tail rotor driveshaft cover and damaged the tail rotor drive shaft and support assembly.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot reported that the weather at the accident site, about the time of the accident, was wind from 130° at 25 knots, gusting to 30 knots with light, terrain-induced turbulence.
The flight manual stated that the wind envelope for spinning and stopping the rotors has been substantiated for winds of 40 knots from any direction and for 50-knot headwinds.
Probable cause
The helicopter’s movement during startup in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in the main rotor striking the tailboom.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA289
- Event ID
- 20180521X23855
- Case number
- GAA18CA289
- 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: b1a47c6e95f729f81413d4a7c5a8fdd680b9e34448d6aaef5d167c0ca892e274; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:12:53.031Z.