NYC95IA164 · Enstrom F-28A
Enstrom F-28A · Incident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Prairie Ronde Airport (P97) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95IA164
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Enstrom F-28A
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F-28
- 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
- N203Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prairie Ronde Airport (P97)To 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Philadelphia, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot manuevered the helicopter for takeoff to the east, over the Delaware River. As the helicopter entered effective translational lift, it began to sink, and rotor rpm decreased. The pilot increased the throttle, but the rotor rpm did not increase in time. The skids contacted the water, resulting in the helicopter going into the water, and sinking. The pilot stated, 'I do not believe that there was a mechanical problem . . . I failed to maintain safe operating (rotor) rpm on takeoff.' The pilot also stated, 'he didn't give enough throttle and didn't stay ahead of the (rotor) rpm.'
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control resulting in a collision with the water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95IA164
- Event ID
- 20001207X04040
- Case number
- NYC95IA164
- 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. 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: 83ce831e9f1bb901311c4d289a019b97cf39002d0bdc2561c929776b297c97ac; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:39:37.745Z.