DCA20IA081 · Aerospatiale AS350BA
Icon Helicopters Aerospatiale AS350BA and DJI Mavic 2 · Incident: midair collision en route
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA20IA081
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Aerospatiale AS350BA
- 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
- N611TC
- Operator
- Icon Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Johnson Valley, CATo Johnson Valley, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1988)
- 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
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · DJI Mavic 2
- Aircraft type
- DJI MAVIC
- 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
- FA37NAYXP9
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Johnson Valley, CATo Johnson Valley, CA
- 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
- Part 107: Small UAS
- 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
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was operating under the provisions of 14 CFR Part 91, with an FAA certificate of authorization or waiver to 91.119 (minimum altitudes) to provide videography of an off-road race, under visual flight rules, within Class G airspace in a remote and unpopulated area. The small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) was operated under the provisions of 14 CFR Part 107, for the same purpose.
The sUAS pilot knew helicopters were operating in close proximity to his position as he was closely following one of the race competitors. Review of video logs indicate the incident helicopter was clearly in view in the sUAS telemetry, however, the remote pilot continued to follow the race vehicle. The remote pilot did not use the service of a visual observer to assist with avoidance of other air traffic.
The helicopter pilot avoided the sUAS, and assumed he was far enough away, when he returned to the racecourse. The sUAS, continuing to follow the racecourse, struck the helicopter on the right side of the windscreen.
Maps of the race layout were provided to the helicopter pilots, but not the sUAS remote pilots, who were also not included in a pre-race organizational meeting for the helicopter pilots. Locations of the remote pilots on the maps were for general orientation, and there was no procedure to provide any sort of separation between the helicopters and sUAS, nor were the sUAS pilots monitoring the helicopter air-to-air frequency.
14 CFR 107.37 Operation near aircraft; right-of-way rules. States that (a) Each small unmanned aircraft must yield the right of way to all aircraft, and (b) No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft so close to another aircraft as to create a collision hazard.
The nature of the race videography brings the aircraft into close proximity with each other. There did not appear to be an appreciation by the race organizers or the sUAS remote pilot of the significance of the sUAS operations as a collision risk to be mitigated. Such tools as defined operating areas, the use of visual observer(s), and/or specified wave-off criteria could have been used to help reduce the risk. Although the race organizers could have provided such an operating framework, it is also incumbent on the certificated remote pilot in command to understand the risks of this operation.
Probable cause
the failure of the small UAS remote pilot to give way to the helicopter, resulting in an inflight collision.
Contributing to the incident was the sUAS remote pilot’s failure to assess and mitigate the risks of operations in close proximity to other aircraft. Also contributing to the incident was the lack of inclusion of the sUAS operations as a part of the aviation activity and risk mitigation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA20IA081
- Event ID
- 20200216X63101
- Case number
- DCA20IA081
- 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, 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: ef1bae044560c4205857ca0abff1f18b4ee6f33df00b3d38b43fdf15d0d7aa56; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:34:42.338Z.