WPR22LA291 · Airbus Helicopters Inc AS350B3
San Bernardino County Sheriffs Dept Airbus Helicopters Inc AS350B3 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA291
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Airbus Helicopters Inc AS350B3
- Aircraft type
- Airbus 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
- N833SB
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD), San Bernardino, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2017)
- 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
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 propeller/rotor
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the helicopter reported that, he noticed a slight bounce during flight that felt like an out of balance main rotor blade. The pilot diverted to a nearby airport as the helicopter began to shake aggressively with a whipping noise hear. During the approach, the shaking worsened, and the pilot elected to perform a run-on landing at the airport. During the following inspection, it was revealed that the main rotor blades were substantially damaged due to delamination. There was also evidence of impact marks near the tip blades that was consistent with contact with vegetation. The operator reported that, 2 days before the accident flight, the blades may have impacted vegetation during an “off-site” landing. According to that pilot, while the front left seat passenger was exiting the helicopter, she inadvertently sat down on the left side collective, pushing it to the full-down position. The helicopter rolled backwards suddenly, resulting in the heels of the skids to contact the ground. The pilot corrected the helicopter’s attitude and checked that the collective’s movement was normal. The helicopter was shut down shortly after and tail and main rotor blades were inspected by the pilot who reported that he didn’t see any evidence of impact at that time. Maintenance personnel inspected the helicopter following the flight and no statements or writeup was found during the investigation. The three pilots that flew the helicopter after the unidentified impact all reported that they felt a slight bounce in the helicopter at speeds of approximately 115 knots and thought that it was a slight out of balance/track rotor and was not that significant.
Probable cause
The subsequent delamination of the main rotor blades as a result of an unidentified main rotor blade impact with vegetation during a previous flight by another pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA291
- Event ID
- 20220804105666
- Case number
- WPR22LA291
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2022-08-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c636f36a8450fc0323765006dacbff83d2ffc1e0b9e6f5edb858f3f378150577; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:33:40.266Z.