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| Date: | Thursday 20 November 2014 |
| Time: | 17:05 |
| Type: |  Eurocopter AS 350B3 Ecureuil |
| Owner/operator: | NanoStroyInvest |
| Registration: | RA-04032 |
| MSN: | 3805 |
| Year of manufacture: | 2004 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 5 / Occupants: 5 |
| Other fatalities: | 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | near Mihalchikovo, Kstovsky district, Nizhny Novgoro -
 Russia
|
| Phase: | Approach |
| Nature: | Private |
| Departure airport: | Moscow |
| Nizhny Novgorod | |
| Investigating agency: | MAK |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
The helicopter took off from the Seliport airfield in Moscow region at 15:00 local time (1200 GMT) with four passengers, including the pilot's spouse and daughter. The pilot reported his descent into Likeevo airport but radio contact was then lost with the aircraft. The crash site was discovered by a rescue team at 20:10 Moscow time.
The most probable cause of the AS-350B3 helicopter crash was the pilot-in-command’s (PIC) loss of control over flight parameters (primarily altitude) during approach for landing at night, in conditions of limited visibility and low cloud ceiling, which did not meet the VFR meteorological minima established for the PIC.
Contributing factors may have included:
- Inadequate assessment of meteorological conditions by the PIC when deciding to depart, which led to the necessity of transitioning to IFR-like flight (for which neither the PIC nor the helicopter was certified) in order to descend through clouds during the approach;
- Limited experience of the PIC on this aircraft type, which—given the specific design of the barometric altimeter scale (with zero height indicated at the bottom of the instrument) installed on RA-04032 and the absence of a radio altimeter on board—could have led to an illusion of sufficient altitude during descent and attempts to acquire visual ground references.
Accident investigation:
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Sources:
http://tass.ru/proisshestviya/1586990_
http://www.forumavia.ru/forum/8/3/492968575318169942561416505883_1.shtml?topiccount=20
http://www.aviafora.com/forums/forum/helicopter-fora/news/98-accidents/page3#post2682
https://mak-iac.org/russian/investigations/2014/as-350b3_ra-04032.html
https://mak-iac.org/rassledovaniya/20-noyabrya-as-350b3-ra-04032
Location
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 20-Nov-2014 21:37 | gerard57 | Added |
| 20-Nov-2014 21:41 | harro | Updated [Aircraft type, Registration, Operator, Location, Source, ] |
| 20-Nov-2014 21:43 | harro | Updated [Registration, Cn, Departure airport, Destination airport, ] |
| 21-Nov-2014 07:49 | HeliNews+ | Updated [Source, Narrative, ] |
| 21-Nov-2014 18:18 | Anon. | Updated [Registration, ] |
| 23-Nov-2014 07:45 | Hans Gruber | Updated [Operator, Source, ] |
| 29-Dec-2015 19:07 | Aerossurance | Updated [Location, Source, Narrative, ] |
| 23-Sep-2016 09:57 | Aerossurance | Updated [Aircraft type, Narrative, ] |
| 15-Oct-2025 19:03 | ASN | Updated [Time, Location, Phase, Narrative, Category, Accident report, ] |
Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description
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