CEN19FA018 · Eurocopter AS350 B3
Enbridge Energy Eurocopter AS350 B3 · Accident en route
From Gogebic Iron County Airport (IWD) to Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA018
- 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
- 1 · 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
Eurocopter AS350 B3
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter 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
- N910S
- Operator
- Enbridge Energy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gogebic Iron County Airport (IWD), Ironwood, MITo Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN), Madison, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2012)
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on a scheduled pipeline patrol observation flight in a turboshaft-powered helicopter. When the pilot did not arrive at his destination, an alert notice was issued for the overdue helicopter. The helicopter wreckage was located about 22 miles west of the helicopter's departure point in a remote wooded area that was about 200 yards north of the east-west pipeline. The pilot was not in contact with air traffic control during the flight, and there was no record of a distress call. A witness working on the pipeline about 2 to 3 miles from the accident site, reported seeing the helicopter fly overhead and further reported that the helicopter looked and sounded "normal."
Visual meteorological conditions surrounded the area of the accident with 10 miles visibility and an overcast sky at 1,600 ft.
The post-crash fire consumed most of the cabin area, which limited the scope of the airframe and engine examinations. Additionally, fire damage prevented the retrieval of information from the helicopter's cockpit image and flight data monitoring system, including nonvolatile memory from the digital engine control unit and engine data recorder. However, no preimpact abnormalities were noted during the engine or airframe examinations. Further, the engine's intake axial compressor blades exhibited damage near the outer tips, and the module 5 torque nut had a slippage of about 1/16 to 1/8 inch, (2 to 4 millimeters) consistent with the engine producing power at the time of impact.
The pilot's autopsy noted moderate-to-severe coronary artery disease, scarring of the heart muscle from a previous myocardial infarction (heart attack), and changes in the blood vessels of the liver that were indicative of congestive heart failure. Thus, the pilot would have been at an increased risk for an acute coronary event causing symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain, palpitations, or fainting. The pilot's complete medical history was not available, and a determination of medical impairment or incapacitation could not be made based on the available evidence for the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of helicopter control for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA018
- Event ID
- 20181030X85917
- Case number
- CEN19FA018
- 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: a346ec3c3caa382c3d127837c7fc930920c337ee0ace78fec977e6c4854629f2; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:50:15.966Z.