CEN24LA053 · Airbus Helicopters Deutschland EC135T3
Airbus Helicopters Deutschland EC135T3 · Accident: birdstrike en route
From St Mary's Hospital Heliport (99MN) to Faribault Municipal Airport-Liz Wall Strohfus Field (FBL)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA053
- 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
Airbus Helicopters Deutschland EC135T3
- Aircraft type
- Airbus EC135
- 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
- N423NM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From St Mary's Hospital Heliport (99MN), Rochester, MNTo Faribault Municipal Airport-Liz Wall Strohfus Field (FBL), Fairbault, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2022)
- 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
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a dark night flight in visual meteorological conditions, an emergency medical services helicopter collided with a flock of birds about 1,100 ft above ground level. The impact shattered the windscreen and caused what the pilot described as an explosion. Despite the damage, the pilot was able to stabilize the helicopter and head towards the nearest airport, about 7.5 miles away. The helicopter landed without further incident. A post-accident examination revealed substantial damage to the main rotor blades in the pitch control cuff area and the monocoque structure of the fantail.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with a flock of birds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA053
- Event ID
- 20231204193462
- Case number
- CEN24LA053
- 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 2023-11-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 88e336c6420f05f4ae39df76ebcdcc3e44332c120461cf685441703c6ee43f5d; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:20:12.748Z.