Updated on: 6/1/2018
Many have been asking questions about the history of the specific helicopter that was involved in the March 18th crash involving a KOMO news helicopter. We recently published registration information of that aircraft which we obtained from the FAA’s registry database.
But looking more closely into the general history of the aircraft’s make/model we found that the Eurocopter AS-350-B2 and its predecessors have been in involved in a number of incidents that have resulted in injuries and fatalities.
According to the NTSB’s aviation accident database, between 1982 and 2014 there were at least 270 separate incidents involving that type of helicopter. Nineteen of these incidents happened shortly after takeoff and seemed to be somewhat similar to the circumstances of the Seattle helicopter crash. There were at least 140 minor injuries, 90 serious injuries, and 182 fatalities reported. According to the information that we reviewed, the vast majority of the incidents, injuries and deaths occurred since 2000.
A search of the same database for incidents involving the specific helicopter that was involved in Tuesday's tragic accident did not find any incident reports.