NYC95LA147 · Bell 47G-3B-1
Atlantic Blueberry Bell 47G-3B-1 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From HAMMANTON, NJ (no airport) to Mays Landing, NJ (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95LA147
- 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
- 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
Bell 47G-3B-1
- Aircraft type
- Bell 47
- 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
- N48316
- Operator
- Atlantic Blueberry
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HAMMANTON, NJ (no airport)To Mays Landing, NJ (no airport)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Rotorcraft flight control, collective control › Failure
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Hammonton, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
At the end of an aerial application mission, the helicopter was refueled, and the pilot departed for home base. A few minutes after takeoff, the helicopter collided with trees. Examination of the engine and drive train revealed no preimpact failure; however, the collective pitch control yoke bearing had failed. The ball bearings and race in the yoke bearing were observed to be pitted, and the ball bearings were worn undersized. The last inspection of the yoke bearing occurred about 9 years and 839 flight hours before the accident, during the 1,200 hour inspection. The yoke bearing was not required to be inspected during the recent 600 hour inspection. The bearing was an on-condition item, and did not have a scheduled time change. The bearing could not be inspected, while installed on the helicopter.
Probable cause
failure of the collective yoke bearing, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent and collision with trees. A factor relating to the accident was: the manufacturer's inadequate inspection interval of the yoke bearing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95LA147
- Event ID
- 20001207X04051
- Case number
- NYC95LA147
- 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: 7baa2994a436e50fb0419f3da850e4f3403f8c622868122b3a1b61fd9f4cc02f; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:42:28.379Z.