Colorado Aviation Accidents & Incidents

HISTORY OF FLIGHT

On May 28, 2003, approximately 0905 mountain daylight time, a Hughes 269C helicopter, N9643F, owned and operated by Highlander Helicopter Leasing, was destroyed when it impacted terrain during landing at Front Range Airport, Watkins, Colorado. The commercial certificated flight instructor was fatally injured, and the private pilot receiving instruction was seriously injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. No flight plan had been filed for the local instructional flight being conducted under Title 14 CFR Part 91. The flight originated approximately 0850.

According to several witnesses, the helicopter had been flying in a left-hand traffic pattern, practicing autorotations on taxiway Charlie. The helicopter had flown the pattern approximately five times, and each time the helicopter descended in a nose-down attitude, leveled off and hovered, "sometimes rising slightly." Another witness, who was working on an oil derrick located approximately 1/4-mile south of taxiway Charlie, saw the accident. He said the "helicopter descended in a nose-down attitude, but it did not appear to level off." From his perspective, it "appeared to strike the ground with its right skid." He said he saw a cloud of dust and saw the helicopter start spinning around rapidly. It struck the ground, rolled over on its right side, and came to rest between taxiways Charlie and Bravo.

According to the Front Range Airport Authority, they received the first report of a helicopter accident at 0911. The receptionist called 9-1-1 at 0913 and, based on reports from personnel on site, an air ambulance was requested. An AirLife helicopter arrived at 0923, and departed with the injured pilot at 0945. The fire department was summoned at 0926, arrived on scene at 0928, and returned to service at 1015.

PERSONNEL INFORMATION

The pilot-in-command held a commercial pilot certificate with rotorcraft-helicopter and instrument-helicopter ratings. He also held a flight instructor certificate with a rotorcraft-helicopter rating, and private pilot privileges in single-engine land airplanes. His second class airman medical certificate, dated April 1, 2003, contained the limitation, "Must wear corrective lenses." A waiver, based on a Statement of Demonstrated Ability, required that he "must wear corrective lenses for distant vision and possess glasses for near vision," due to "defective distant vision poorer than 20/200 corrected to 20/20 bilaterally." His two logbooks were made available for inspection. The first logbook contained entries from February 2, 1998, to May 21, 1998. The second logbook contained entries from December 30, 1991, to January 23, 2003. As of that date, he had logged the following flight time (in hours):

Total time, 1,116.6
Pilot-in-Command, 992.7
Instruction Received, 123.8
Instruction Given, 401.0
Actual Instruments, 0.7
Simulated Instruments, 38.2
Night, 67.2
Airplane single-engine land, 120.8
Cessna 152, 1.9
Cessna 172, 15.4
Piper PA-28,