Narrative:

While enroute on descent around 6;500 ft MSL we got an engine chip light about 12 NM from the destination. I notified approach control of our situation while I began to look for a spot off our nose. Being we had a strong quartering left head wind and picked a landing zone (lz) at a pull off area that was adjacent to the only straight hard surfaced road in the area. As I started to inform the med crew of the lz I had picked out with the backup plan to land on the road if need be when I heard pop followed by a decrease engine sound; rapid descent and low rotor horn. I quickly lowered collective and came more aft cyclic and entered an auto assuming engine failure and notified ATC of our issue. Being I already had the straight road picked out off our nose I continued to keep heading in that direction. I focused all my attention on rotor RPM; airspeed and lz and began to scan for vehicle traffic and make sure my glide wasn't going to run into any of the power lines that crossed the road. I followed the auto procedures and performed a full down auto-rotation on the road. As soon as we came to a stop; happily upright; white smoke started pushing pass the aircraft sides and nose so I performed the engine emergency shutdown in case the engine was still running. The smoke dissipated and once the blades stopped; we egressed with the fire extinguisher and planned to move the patient but saw no fire or apparent damage to the aircraft on inspection. The patient was picked up by another company aircraft 10 minutes away. A logbook entry was not put in the aircraft logbook; the times right before I was about to pull the logbook out and make a maintenance entry I got distracted due to a sheriff deputy asking if it was possible to open a lane of traffic next to the aircraft [and] allow traffic to head home.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Eurocopter AS350 Captain reported they experienced a 'chip detector' warning light during cruise and made a succesful auto rotation and off field landing.

Narrative: While enroute on descent around 6;500 FT MSL we got an engine chip light about 12 NM from the destination. I notified approach control of our situation while I began to look for a spot off our nose. Being we had a strong quartering left head wind and picked a landing zone (LZ) at a pull off area that was adjacent to the only straight hard surfaced road in the area. As I started to inform the med crew of the LZ I had picked out with the backup plan to land on the road if need be when I heard pop followed by a decrease engine sound; rapid descent and low rotor horn. I quickly lowered collective and came more aft cyclic and entered an auto assuming engine failure and notified ATC of our issue. Being I already had the straight road picked out off our nose I continued to keep heading in that direction. I focused all my attention on rotor RPM; airspeed and LZ and began to scan for vehicle traffic and make sure my glide wasn't going to run into any of the power lines that crossed the road. I followed the auto procedures and performed a full down auto-rotation on the road. As soon as we came to a stop; happily upright; white smoke started pushing pass the aircraft sides and nose so I performed the engine emergency shutdown in case the engine was still running. The smoke dissipated and once the blades stopped; we egressed with the fire extinguisher and planned to move the patient but saw no fire or apparent damage to the aircraft on inspection. The patient was picked up by another company aircraft 10 minutes away. A logbook entry was not put in the aircraft logbook; the times right before I was about to pull the logbook out and make a maintenance entry I got distracted due to a Sheriff deputy asking if it was possible to open a lane of traffic next to the aircraft [and] allow traffic to head home.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.