3 hours ago
This was not a Rotorway but it is a great lesson for all of us to be proficient and comfortable initiating an auto and managing our fuel.
4 people died because a pilot was texting instead of checking fuel. This one is hard to read.
The helicopter was a Eurocopter AS350 B2, call sign N352LN, operated by Air Methods Corporation as an EMS flight under Part 135. The crew was a pilot, flight nurse, and flight paramedic. They had a patient on board.
The flight originated from Harrison County Community Hospital in Bethany, Missouri around 1811. The plan was straightforward: fly to the Midwest National Air Center in Mosby, Missouri to refuel, then continue 7 nautical miles to Liberty Hospital to deliver the patient.
The pilot knew fuel was critically low before the first departure. He knew it again before the second.
He departed anyway. Both times.
The NTSB found that the pilot was texting during safety-critical ground and flight operations. Not glancing at a phone. Texting. During preflight. During operations where a fuel check should have been non-negotiable.
He also carried fatigue into that cockpit.
At approximately 1841, 30 minutes after departure from Bethany, the engine lost power. Fuel exhaustion. The pilot attempted to enter an autorotation, but he did not successfully complete it. The helicopter impacted the ground near GPH.
The pilot, flight nurse, flight paramedic, and patient were all killed.
The NTSB later noted that the pilot's autorotation training in the AS350 B2 had not included practice representative of an actual engine failure at cruise airspeed. That gap mattered in the last seconds.
There was no operational policy requiring the pilot to notify the control center about an abnormal fuel situation. No backstop. No one on the ground who could have interrupted what was unfolding.
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NTSB Probable Cause: The pilot's failure to confirm that the helicopter had adequate fuel on board to complete the mission before making the first departure, his improper decision to continue the mission and make a second departure after he became aware of a critically low fuel level, and his failure to successfully enter an autorotation when the engine lost power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident were (1) the pilot's distracted attention due to personal texting during safety-critical ground and flight operations, (2) his degraded performance due to fatigue, (3) the operator's lack of a policy requiring that an operational control center specialist be notified of abnormal fuel situations, and (4) the lack of practice representative of an actual engine failure at cruise airspeed in the pilot's autorotation training in the accident make and model helicopter.
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Fuel state is not a suggestion to check when convenient. Check it before departure, confirm it before every subsequent departure, and if the number is wrong, you don't fly until it isn't.
📋 August 26, 2011 · Eurocopter AS350 B2 · N352LN · 4 fatal
#PilotDebrief #FuelManagement #EMSAviation
4 people died because a pilot was texting instead of checking fuel. This one is hard to read.
The helicopter was a Eurocopter AS350 B2, call sign N352LN, operated by Air Methods Corporation as an EMS flight under Part 135. The crew was a pilot, flight nurse, and flight paramedic. They had a patient on board.
The flight originated from Harrison County Community Hospital in Bethany, Missouri around 1811. The plan was straightforward: fly to the Midwest National Air Center in Mosby, Missouri to refuel, then continue 7 nautical miles to Liberty Hospital to deliver the patient.
The pilot knew fuel was critically low before the first departure. He knew it again before the second.
He departed anyway. Both times.
The NTSB found that the pilot was texting during safety-critical ground and flight operations. Not glancing at a phone. Texting. During preflight. During operations where a fuel check should have been non-negotiable.
He also carried fatigue into that cockpit.
At approximately 1841, 30 minutes after departure from Bethany, the engine lost power. Fuel exhaustion. The pilot attempted to enter an autorotation, but he did not successfully complete it. The helicopter impacted the ground near GPH.
The pilot, flight nurse, flight paramedic, and patient were all killed.
The NTSB later noted that the pilot's autorotation training in the AS350 B2 had not included practice representative of an actual engine failure at cruise airspeed. That gap mattered in the last seconds.
There was no operational policy requiring the pilot to notify the control center about an abnormal fuel situation. No backstop. No one on the ground who could have interrupted what was unfolding.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NTSB Probable Cause: The pilot's failure to confirm that the helicopter had adequate fuel on board to complete the mission before making the first departure, his improper decision to continue the mission and make a second departure after he became aware of a critically low fuel level, and his failure to successfully enter an autorotation when the engine lost power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident were (1) the pilot's distracted attention due to personal texting during safety-critical ground and flight operations, (2) his degraded performance due to fatigue, (3) the operator's lack of a policy requiring that an operational control center specialist be notified of abnormal fuel situations, and (4) the lack of practice representative of an actual engine failure at cruise airspeed in the pilot's autorotation training in the accident make and model helicopter.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Fuel state is not a suggestion to check when convenient. Check it before departure, confirm it before every subsequent departure, and if the number is wrong, you don't fly until it isn't.
📋 August 26, 2011 · Eurocopter AS350 B2 · N352LN · 4 fatal
#PilotDebrief #FuelManagement #EMSAviation