FlarePath

What happened

NTSB summary, verbatim

According to the flight nurse and paramedic, the flight was normal until the helicopter suddenly rolled to the left as they approached the helipad during landing. The pilot made no attempt to correct the roll, and the helicopter rolled onto its side and the main rotors contacted the ground. The pilot was immediately observed to be unresponsive and not breathing, and the flight nurse and paramedic began CPR as quickly as they could extricate the pilot from the cockpit. Autopsy of the pilot revealed severe coronary artery disease that placed him at significant increased risk for sudden death from an acute coronary event. Given the pilot's sudden inability to pilot the helicopter safely, the recognition by certified medical personnel that he was unresponsive and not breathing immediately following the accident, and the fact that he did not suffer enough blunt force trauma to have caused immediate cardiac arrest, it is most likely that the accident occurred because the pilot became incapacitated from an acute cardiac event.

Photographs

6the aircraft, and what the investigators found

Wreckage and site documentation · 6 photographs from the docket

Photographs are NTSB docket attachments — works of the US government, in the public domain. Captions are the Board’s own.

Probable cause

the Board's determination

Pilot incapacitation by a sudden cardiac event related to severe coronary artery disease, which resulted in a loss of helicopter control.

Occurrence sequence

3 stepsNTSB coding · CICTT taxonomy

1 · Approach
Medical event
defining event
2 · Approach
Loss of control in flight
3 · Uncontrolled descent
Collision with terr/obj (non-CFIT)

Findings

1 causal · 0 contributing

CAUSE
Personnel issues › Physical › Impairment/incapacitation › Cardiovascular — Pilot

NTSB analysis

from the final report

According to the flight nurse and paramedic, the flight was normal until the helicopter suddenly rolled to the left as they approached the helipad during landing. The pilot made no attempt to correct the roll, and the helicopter rolled onto its side and the main rotors contacted the ground. The pilot was immediately observed to be unresponsive and not breathing, and the flight nurse and paramedic began CPR as quickly as they could extricate the pilot from the cockpit. Autopsy of the pilot revealed severe coronary artery disease that placed him at significant increased risk for sudden death from an acute coronary event. Given the pilot's sudden inability to pilot the helicopter safely, the recognition by certified medical personnel that he was unresponsive and not breathing immediately following the accident, and the fact that he did not suffer enough blunt force trauma to have caused immediate cardiac arrest, it is most likely that the accident occurred because the pilot became incapacitated from an acute cardiac event.

Bell 407Survival Flight, LLC