NYC99LA138 · Enstrom F-28
Enstrom F-28 · Accident: in flight collision with object during takeoff
From ISZ · OH to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA138
- 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
Enstrom F-28
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F-28
- 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
- N9588
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From ISZ · OHTo 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot started giving helicopter rides to airshow spectators in the morning. Then stopped about noon, because airspace around the airport was being closed for airshow performers. After the show, he resumed giving rides, and had completed 4 to 6 rides prior to the accident. During those rides, he did not notice any problems with the helicopter. On the accident flight, the pilot brought the helicopter to a hover into the wind, then initiated the takeoff. The helicopter started to climb, but at 10 feet agl and prior to translational lift, the wind shifted, and the helicopter started to settle. The throttle was full open, and rotor rpm was in the 'normal' range. The pilot felt increasing collective would cause rotor rpm to decay. The left skid then went under a rope barricade, and the helicopter decelerated and yawed to the left. Then suddenly it yawed to the right, which the pilot identified as a tailrotor malfunction. He 'cut the throttle' and executed a hovering autorotation. The helicopter touchdown, the right skid collapsed, and the helicopter rolled onto its right side.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate evaluation of the weather conditions at the time of departure, which resulted in a downwind takeoff. A factor in the accident was the change in wind direction.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA138
- Event ID
- 20001212X19091
- Case number
- NYC99LA138
- 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: cdade97f1b25a3ebafe654133d6d59c4fb0632a909312f94970d0b593d1a6482; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:30:51.473Z.