NYC96LA143 · Aerospatiale AS-332L
Aerospatiale AS-332L · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while standing
From N12 to Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA143
- 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
- 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
Aerospatiale AS-332L
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-332
- 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
- N25AN
- Operator
- Trump Plaza Management
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From N12To Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU), Morristown, NJ
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Hydraulic system, actuator › Leak
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lakewood, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After three flights, the helicopter was landed and the engines were shut down. When a passenger was boarded, the engines were restarted, and the pilot taxied the helicopter for takeoff. While waiting to takeoff, about 5 to 10 minutes after the engines were started, the pilot noticed a stiffness in the flight controls. This was followed immediately by illumination of electrical warning lights, loss of power from both alternators, and an odor of smoke in the cabin. Both engines were shut down, fire bottles were discharged, and the crew and passenger exited the helicopter. Examination of the fuselage revealed a fire had been centered around the right lateral hydraulic servo. The number two hydraulic lower cylinder distribution module of the right lateral servo had melted, and the high pressure lines were found 'free' of the module. The helicopter's alternators, located aft of the main transmission, contained internal cooling fans that drew air through the alternators. The alternators and their respective wiring bundles were extensively damaged by fire. The ignition source of the fire was not determined. The fire detection system (with visual and aural signals) did not activate prior to the electrical warning lights.
Probable cause
a number two system module hydraulic oil leak, which was ignited by an undetermined source and resulted in a hydraulic fluid fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA143
- Event ID
- 20001208X06339
- Case number
- NYC96LA143
- 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: 8699d4054e3b38d66e6022ee1639707742e95a3dcdfe1712852216c561163c64; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:00:15.424Z.