The accident site, on the side of a Hawaiian mountain, is outlined in red.
A 15,700-hour helicopter pilot flew his Airbus Helicopters AS350 B2 into low clouds and rain on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and lost sight of key visual references before the helicopter crashed into a mountainside, killing the pilot and all six passengers on a 2019 sightseeing flight. The helicopter was destroyed.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) cited the pilot’s continuation of the flight into deteriorating weather as the probable cause of the accident, but emphasized that the failure of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to implement a number of NTSB safety recommendations contributed to the crash.
“Some might feel this was all on the pilot; it was his decision, after all,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said during a Tuesday meeting on the Dec. 26, 2019, crash. In discussing the contributing factors, she added, “The most concerning to me is the lack of…
