NYC97LA058 · Aerospatiale AS-355F
Corporate Jets Aerospatiale AS-355F · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From AFJ to PA (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA058
- 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-355F
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-355
- 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
- N101UC
- Operator
- Corporate Jets
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AFJTo PA (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 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Rotorcraft flight control system › Hardover
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Washington, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A mechanic changed one of the helicopter's lateral cyclic servos. The helicopter was test flown by the pilot with the mechanic onboard. After a successful test flight, the mechanic exited the helicopter and the pilot was to reposition the helicopter to the hospital helipad. When the pilot raised the collective, the helicopter lifted about 2 to 4 feet above the ground, and then began to roll left. The pilot attempted to correct for the left roll; however, the helicopter did not respond and the main rotor blades struck the ground. Examination of the helicopter revealed control continuity, and that the hydraulic servos were installed correctly. No preimpact failure of the airframe was observed. Examination of the servos revealed that two of the units tested to manufacturer's parameters. The master servo unit failed the bench test, had the appearance that it had been worked on, and did not meet manufacturer's specifications. The helicopter manufacturer stated that this would not induce a 'hard over.'
Probable cause
The malfunction of a cyclic servo which resulted in a cyclic hard over at a hover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA058
- Event ID
- 20001208X07614
- Case number
- NYC97LA058
- 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: 6edc13cdb5c226d4f8e8ad827db7ae4edb96998d877a1c2873214fe0344a2062; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:29:58.609Z.