2026 Long Lellang helicopter crash
Layang Layang Aerospace (on behalf of the Ministry of Health) Bölkow BO-105 · Engine fire and crash during landing approach
From Miri Airport (MYY) to Long Lellang Airport (LGL)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA26WA300
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 5
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Not recorded
Bölkow BO-105
- Aircraft type
- Bölkow BO-105
- 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
- 9M-LLF
- Onboard fatalities
- 5
- Route
- From Miri Airport (MYY)To Long Lellang Airport (LGL)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
On 8 September 2026, a Bölkow BO-105 helicopter operated by Layang Layang Aerospace crashed and caught fire near Long Lellang STOLport in Ulu Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia. The aircraft was executing an official flying doctor service mission on behalf of the health ministry when it encountered a suspected engine fire during its landing approach. All five individuals on board, consisting of the pilot and four medical personnel were killed in the accident. The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia and the Air Accident Investigation Bureau have launched a safety investigation to determine the definitive cause of the crash.
Background
The flying doctor service in Sarawak is a critical initiative managed by the health ministry to deliver vital medical care, emergency transport and clinical services to isolated rural communities in the state's mountainous and densely forested interior. Due to the severe lack of accessible road infrastructure in regions like Ulu Baram, the service relies heavily on STOL airstrips and helicopter operations to deploy medical personnel.
The aircraft involved in the accident was a twin-engine Bölkow BO-105 S (CBS 5) helicopter, manufactured in Germany in 1991. Registered as 9M-LLF, it was owned and operated by Layang Layang Aerospace, a regional charter aviation company contracted by the government to support the state's rural healthcare logistics. The helicopter had a long-standing operational history in the region, having been actively utilized for Sarawak's flying doctor service missions for 17 years since 2009. According to statements from the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia and regional police, the aircraft was deemed fully airworthy and had undergone its most recent routine scheduled maintenance check on 24 August 2026, just two weeks prior to the incident.
On the day of the accident, the helicopter was operating under the tactical callsign "MEDIC-3". It departed from Miri Airport on a scheduled multi-stop routing aimed at serving rural clinics, covering Miri, Ba Lai, Long Siut, and its final intended destination, Long Lellang.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2026 Long Lellang helicopter crash” (revision 1375415698, 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
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2026 Long Lellang helicopter crash
- Revision
- 1375415698 · 2026-09-17 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q141411807
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record GAA26WA300
- Event ID
- 20260909203767
- Case number
- GAA26WA300
- Dataset
- weekly-update
- Source SHA-256
- e16f44eeff55150b5192e95c85e55eb0a70ccc5d8c1fa53360b23f78f777bd18
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2026 Long Lellang helicopter crash" (page 84184527, revision 1375415698); merged with NTSB case GAA26WA300 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record GAA26WA300
- Operation
- operator named as flying for a government agency in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2026 Long Lellang helicopter crash" and NTSB case GAA26WA300, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative and the aircraft's make and model, which establish these values: aircraft category. The aircraft is a Bölkow BO 105 (9M-LLF), a helicopter; the NTSB MDB codes it AIR (Airplane).