Date:	Sunday 26 July 1998
Time:	16:37
Type:	Aérospatiale AS355 F1 Ecureuil
Owner/operator:	Kent Air Ambulance
Registration:	G-MASK
MSN:	5326
Year of manufacture:	1985
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 3 / Occupants: 3
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Category:	Accident
Location:	Burnham, south of the M2 motorway and Rochester airport, Kent -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Initial climb
Nature:	Ambulance
Departure airport:	Rochester, Kent (RCS/EGTO)
Destination airport:	Rochester, Kent (RCS/EGTO)
Investigating agency:	AAIB
Confidence Rating:	Accident investigation report completed and information captured

Narrative:
The task from which the helicopter did not return began at 16:04 hours when the crew took off from Rochester to attend a road traffic accident about 3 nautical miles north of the airport on the M2 motorway just north of the Medway Bridge. The crew had some difficulty in locating the accident because the vehicle had left the road and entered bushes and they circled the area at low altitude for a while before finding the location. There was no suitable landing site beside the car so the commander landed in the corner of a field a few hundred metres north of the car, beside an underpass leading to a housing estate.

The commander shut down the helicopter and remained with it whilst the ambulancemen went to the scene of the car accident. Their services were not required and they returned to the helicopter, stowed their gear and boarded. By this time people had made their way through the underpass to watch the helicopter depart. As it did so, two boys reported seeing what looked to them like sparks or flashes of light coming from the main rotor head mast area. The flashes stopped before the helicopter took off; apart from these observations and one report of an oily smell, there were no reports from the onlookers to suggest anything remarkable about the helicopter's departure. It lifted to the hover, transitioned to the north-west and then turned left onto a heading which the observers thought was consistent with a return to Rochester Airport. The ambulancemen sent a coded message to their HQ reporting that they were airborne, returning to base, and available for tasking; this message was timed at 16:25 hours, some 12 minutes before the helicopter crashed.

The weather at the time of the accident was fine with a temperature of 20°C, light winds from the west, good visibility and a few clouds at 4,000 feet. It was clear from an examination of the crash site and the wreckage that the accident occurred when G-MASK collided with an electric power cable and very shortly thereafter struck the ground.

Post crash fire. Initial investigation established no cause for the crash, due to the fireball produced on impact. Initially the pilot's employers, Police Aviation Services, denied liability. On 19 February 2004, following a civil case brought by the pilot's widow to the High Court in Manchester, it was ruled that the crash was caused by mechanical failure not, as had been suggested, flying low for fun, and ordered compensation to be paid.

A memorial to the crew is located at the Blue Bell Hill picnic site, close to the scene of the crash

1. AAIB: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5422ee1840f0b613460001ef/Aerospatiale_AS355_F1_Ecureuil_II__G-MASK_02-00.pdf
2. Daily Mirror - Tuesday 28 July 1998
3. Whitstable Times - Thursday 30 July 1998
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/139680.stm
5. http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/air-ambulance-crash-pilot-blame-a11902/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Air_Ambulance#1998_Air_Ambulance_crash
7. http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2668.0
8. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12256511.Five_killed_in_air_crashes_Helicopter_hits_power_lines/
9. http://www.burhamvillage.com/historykentairambulancememorial.htm
10. https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/120523-kent-air-ambulance-pilot-cleared.html
11. https://web.archive.org/web/20071111011814/http://aviationwatch.co.uk/memoriam2.php?p=7
12. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3504239.stm
13. http://www.paramedic.org.uk/Members/Enigma/News_Item.2004-02-25.0834/view
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bell_Hill

Blue Bell Hill Picnic site on the North Downs in Kent gives a view over the Medway Gap Memorial to Kent Air Ambulance Crew. Crashed 26 July 1998.

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
17-May-2008 11:10	ASN archive	Added
19-Oct-2012 22:21	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Other fatalities, Location, Country, Phase, Nature, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative]
20-Oct-2012 02:08	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Location, Source, Narrative]
20-Oct-2012 02:11	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
26-May-2013 02:54	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Embed code, Narrative]
23-Oct-2015 13:18	Aerossurance	Updated [Aircraft type, Source]
23-Oct-2015 13:21	Aerossurance	Updated [Location, Narrative]
27-Jun-2016 12:10	Dr.John Smith	Updated [Location, Source, Embed code]
20-Feb-2020 18:20	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source]
30-Jan-2022 07:43	BEAVERSPOTTER	Updated [Aircraft type, Country]
30-Jan-2022 07:43	harro	Updated [Country]