2018 Sapphire Aviation Bell UH-1 crash
Bell UH-1H · Controlled flight into terrain
From Raton Municipal Airport / Crews Field (RTN) to Folsom, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18FA078
- 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
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 6
- Survivors
- 1
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 1
- 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
Bell UH-1H
- Aircraft type
- Bell UH-1
- 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
- N658H
- Operator
- Sapphire Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Raton Municipal Airport / Crews Field (RTN), Raton, NMTo Folsom, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 11 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
On January 17, 2018, a Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopter of Sapphire Aviation crashed near Raton, New Mexico, United States. Five of the six people on board were killed. The sole survivor was in serious condition.
Accident
The helicopter crashed and caught fire east of Raton, New Mexico. The pilot, pilot rated passenger, and three of the four passengers on board were killed, including Zimbabwean politician Roy Bennett and British world record holder Charles Burnett III. Burnett had set the record for a steam-powered car in 2009. The sole survivor, Andra Cobb, was the daughter of the pilot rated passenger Paul Cobb, and the long term romantic partner of Charles Burnett. Cobb was seriously injured but was able to raise the alarm by cellphone; although she was unable to give the location of the crash, it was located by New Mexico State Police on a ranch 15 mi east of Raton. The aircraft was flying from Raton Municipal Airport to a site in Folsom, New Mexico. It crashed at about 18:00 local time. The Albuquerque Journal reported that the pilot had said that there had been mechanical problems with the helicopter the day before the accident. It was stated that these had been fixed before the fatal flight.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The US National Transportation Safety Board investigated the accident. The final report cited pilot error, determining pilot Coleman Dodd was flying too low. Investigators said a low therapeutic amount of an antihistamine was found in his blood but could not say with certainty it contributed to his inability to avoid crashing.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2018 Sapphire Aviation Bell UH-1 crash” (revision 1374309809, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot, a pilot rated passenger and four passengers departed in the helicopter on a cross-country flight in dark night visual meteorological conditions. According to the sole surviving passenger, the flight proceeded normally until it impacted the ground in level flight and came to rest inverted.
The pilot initially survived the accident but succumbed to his injuries en route to the hospital. A witness who spoke to the pilot before he was transported from the accident site reported that the pilot said that he had flown into terrain.
Overhead imagery revealed that the area surrounding the accident site comprised unpopulated ranchland grass and sparse, low brush. The imagery showed a reduced amount of visual terrain features in the area of the accident site during night conditions and there were no sources of ground lighting or illumination in the vicinity. The pilot's familiarity with the route of flight could not be determined.
The wreckage was located on a nearly-level mesa that rose about 100 ft above the surrounding mountainous terrain. A postaccident examination did not reveal any preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the helicopter, and ground scars at the site were consistent with impact in a level attitude.
Toxicology testing indicated a therapeutic level of diphenhydramine in the pilot's blood at the time of the accident, which likely impaired him to some degree; however, it could not be determined if psychomotor slowing from the diphenhydramine contributed to his inability to recognize and/or avoid the terrain.
FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 61-134, General Aviation Controlled Flight into Terrain Awareness, defines controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) as when an airworthy aircraft is flown, under the control of a qualified pilot, into terrain (water or obstacles) with inadequate awareness on the part of the pilot of the impending collision. Professional aviation articles on CFIT state that during night conditions where the height above terrain may be misperceived by a pilot, controlled flight into terrain can occur, even to experienced pilots.
Given the lack of mechanical anomalies and the level impact attitude of the helicopter, it is likely that the pilot failed to maintain adequate altitude during cruise flight and subsequently impacted rising terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate altitude above mountainous terrain during cruise flight in dark night conditions, which resulted in controlled flight into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2018 Sapphire Aviation Bell UH-1 crash
- Revision
- 1374309809 · 2026-09-11 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q48851855
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record CEN18FA078
- Event ID
- 20180118X03803
- Case number
- CEN18FA078
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2018 Sapphire Aviation Bell UH-1 crash" (page 56351978, revision 1374309809); merged with NTSB case CEN18FA078 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record CEN18FA078: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record CEN18FA078
- Map position
- NTSB record CEN18FA078: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record CEN18FA078: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record CEN18FA078: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- NTSB record CEN18FA078: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record CEN18FA078: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2018 Sapphire Aviation Bell UH-1 crash" and NTSB case CEN18FA078, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-01-18.