ATL93IA111 · Sikorsky S-76A
Southern Company Services Sikorsky S-76A · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From an unrecorded airport to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93IA111
- 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
Sikorsky S-76A
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-76
- 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
- N110AL
- Operator
- Southern Company Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Birmingham, AL
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, improper
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor cable › Failure, total
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor cable › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT DURING CRUISE FLIGHT, AT ABOUT 200 FEET AGL, HE HEARD A 'SNAP' SOUND, AND THE HELICOPTER YAWED ABOUT 30 DEGREES TO THE RIGHT. HE OBSERVED THE LEFT ANTITORQUE PEDAL TO BE INOPERATIVE. DIRECTIONAL CONTROL WAS MAINTAINED WITH ENGINE POWER ADJUSTMENTS. A RUN ON LANDING WAS PERFORMED AT THE BIRMINGHAM AIRPORT. THE HELICOPTER WAS THEN TOWED FROM THE RUNWAY. AN INSPECTION OF HELICOPTER REVEALED THAT THE LEFT TAIL ROTOR CABLE ASSEMBLY HAD FAILED IN THE VICINITY OF A PULLEY. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION INDICATED THAT THE CABLE FAILED FROM SEVERE WEAR OF THE INDIVIDUAL WIRES OF THE CABLE STRANDS. THE CABLE WAS INSPECTED 521 HOURS PRIOR TO THE INCIDENT; MAINTENANCE MANUAL DICTATES CABLE INSPECTION AT EVERY 750 HOUR INSPECTION. CABLE WAS ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT ON THIS HELICOPTER (4110 HRS TOTAL TIME).
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO PROPERLY INSPECT THE TAIL ROTOR CONTROL CABLE AT THE LAST 750 HOUR INSPECTION, AND THE SUBSEQUENT TOTAL FAILURE OF THE CABLE DUE TO WEAR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93IA111
- Event ID
- 20001211X12524
- Case number
- ATL93IA111
- 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, damage. 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: 6bb4cd750047d3cd8cfd2c483a32712acaa4847c69423654768c003259acff65; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:58:04.764Z.