SEA99LA038 · Sikorsky S-64E
Sikorsky S-64E · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99LA038
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Sikorsky S-64E
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-64
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N194AC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Maneuvering · hover
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Object › Other person
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the aero-logging helicopter had lowered a multiple-log load onto the landing site, hit the release switch to release the two choker cables, and then began to move away from the area. One of the choker lines momentarily failed to release, resulting in one end of one of the logs lifting into the air and then falling back to the ground. One of the ground crew members entered the landing area after the logs were initially lowered to the ground, but prior to the release of the second cable. When the end of the log lifted into the air and fell back to the ground, it fell on the crew member, inflicting fatal injuries. It was the opinion of some of the other crew members that the victim never noticed that the second cable had not yet released or that the end of the log was being lifted back into the air. According to Washington Administrative Code, Chapter 296-54, 'Logs shall be laid on the ground and the helicopter will be completely free of the choker()s) before workers approach the logs.'
Probable cause
The failure of the victim to follow the procedure that required him to make sure that all choker lines had separated from the helicopter's release mechanism prior to entering the landing (collection area).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99LA038
- Event ID
- 20001205X00392
- Case number
- SEA99LA038
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b98417e1ab24a3a93b9e7eb89ff3000962b665e58b1d8f67765a1abc6c0dedc7; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:13:33.453Z.