FTW97FA330 · Southwest Florida Aviation SW204
Southwest Florida Aviation SW204 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA330
- 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
Southwest Florida Aviation SW204
- Aircraft type
- Southwest Florida SW204
- 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
- N482SA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo 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 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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, compliance with ad, inadequate
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, modification, inadequate
- Rotor system, main rotor blade › Fatigue
- Rotor system, main rotor blade › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was applying pesticide to a cotton field when the outboard 9 feet of one main rotor blade separated in flight, resulting in the main rotor system separating from the main transmission mast. The in-flight separation of the main rotor blade was due to fatigue cracks emanating from a puncture through the lower surface of the blade in the leading edge area. The shape of the puncture, the crater mark above the puncture, and surrounding areas containing heavy deposits of lead residue indicated a bullet had entered the blade. The puncture had been repaired; however, manufacturer's specifications stated that this type damage is nonrepairable and the blade should be scrapped. In July 1995, the rotor blade was modified. During the modification process, the blade was inspected for damage. In April 1997, an AD requiring inspection of the blade was complied with.
Probable cause
Fatigue failure of the main rotor blade resulting in the in-flight separation of the main rotor system due to the use of an unairworthy blade, and failure of the maintenance personnel who modified the rotor blade and the mechanic who complied with the Airworthiness Directive to locate the unapproved repair. A factor was the unapproved repair of the main rotor blade.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA330
- Event ID
- 20001208X08612
- Case number
- FTW97FA330
- 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: a2f02a297d63132d8052743426359f447516c625ea8f55fa085ed25ad4aa648e; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:50:53.198Z.