ATL98IA039 · Robinson R-44
Robinson R-44 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98IA039
- 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
Robinson R-44
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R-44
- 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
- N972SA
- Operator
- Spencer Gordon
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), Fort Lauderdale, FLTo 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
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Manufacturer › Maintenance, service bulletin/letter, inadequate
- Rotorcraft flight control system, cyclic trim › Movement restricted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, as he was attempting to land, he was unable to apply left cyclic. The pilot made a run-on landing, using right turns, without further incident. Further examination of the cyclic revealed that the lateral trim actuator shaft was worn and lodged in the guide bearing, thus interfering with the surrounding structure. After this incident, the inspection criteria for the lateral cyclic trim system was reviewed. The criteria did not include a measurement of the shaft wear. There was a service bulletin, SB-19, that dealt with excessive shaft wear on Robinson R-44 helicopters, but it did not apply to the incident helicopter. Subsequent to this incident, a new Service Bulletin, SB-26, was released for R-44 helicopters, which stated that the lateral cyclic trim assembly shaft, P/N C585-1, should be measured in several places. If the shaft diameter varies more than 0.004 inches in any 0.50 inch of length, the assembly should be replaced before further flight. After the release of SB-26, a priority Airworthiness Directive (AD), AD 98-04-12, was issued to require compliance with the terms of SB-26.
Probable cause
An inadequate service bulletin which did not require measurement of the cyclic trim assembly shaft and did not identify all helicopters in which shaft wear could lead to restricted movement of the lateral cyclic trim.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98IA039
- Event ID
- 20001211X09393
- Case number
- ATL98IA039
- 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: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1998-01-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c335f58379536b17ef066d6a9d74deb7cc8d87ab55fc72a528a6b1cbbec8fee6; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:05:28.950Z.