WPR23LA200 · Eurocopter AS 350 B3
US Department of Homeland Security Eurocopter AS 350 B3 · Accident: loss of control in flight while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA200
- 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
- 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 AS 350 B3
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS-350
- 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
- N791AM
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the helicopter reported that he had completed an operational mission, during which he was wearing Night Vision Goggles (NVGs), and returned to the airport. While hover taxiing to parking using the NVGs, an aircraft approaching the airport to land triggered the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), causing the helicopter’s strobing “wig-wag” lights to activate and impact the pilot’s visibility. The pilot looked down to locate the light switch and removed his hand from the collective to deactivate the lights. The helicopter descended and contacted the ground before the pilot could stop the descent. The helicopter subsequently became airborne again and the pilot was able to regain control and continue hover taxiing to parking. Substantial damage to the tail boom was discovered after the flight. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain altitude during a hover taxi due to distraction resulting from the unanticipated activation of strobing lights while using night vision googles.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA200
- Event ID
- 20230525192242
- Case number
- WPR23LA200
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-05-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c13c24cda98b7da7c4919ace683de05fec8b2aa82f1f425b592c87f1fe09b2aa; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:38:41.137Z.