Helikopter - Flight into deteriorating weather..... Alaska

NTSB faults pilot, Alaska DPS culture in 2013 trooper helicopter crash

ANCHORAGE - The National Transportation Safety Board has cited a pilot's decision to fly into poor weather as the probable cause of an Alaska State Troopers helicopter crash that killed three people last year near Talkeetna.

The agency said a "punitive culture and inadequate safety management" within the state Department of Public Safety, which includes the statewide troopers police force, also played a role in the crash.

On a 4-0 vote, the board determined that the March 30, 2013 crash of Helo-1's probable cause was pilot Mel Nading's "decision to continue flight under visual flight rules into deteriorating weather conditions which resulted in the pilot's spatial disorientation and loss of control."

All four active board members plus Acting Chair Christopher A. Hart convened in Washington, D.C. at 5:30 a.m. Alaska time in a review of NTSB findings on the Eurocopter AS-350B(3)'s wreck in dense woods. The accident killed Nading as well as Talkeetna-based Trooper Tage Toll and injured snowmachiner Carl Ober.

In a preliminary report on the crash, the NTSB had discussed both Nading's decision to fly at night to rescue Ober, as well as the overall safety culture at DPS. Sherry Hassell, a former supervisor of Alaska Wildlife Troopers' aircraft section, told investigators that she had tried to protest improper aircraft operations within the department but was told she didn't have authority to do so, and that when she asked why aircraft and pilots were later removed from her supervision she was told "that's just what's happening."