NYC90DGM03 · Continental Copters MK5A
Continental Copters MK5A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90DGM03
- 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
Continental Copters MK5A
- Aircraft type
- Continental Copters MK5
- 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
- N9024T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
- Rotorcraft flight control, cyclic control rod › Failure, partial
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD FINISHED A SPRAY SWATH AND INITIATED A 'CYLIC CLIMB' TO CLEAR TREES AT THE END OF THE FIELD. HE REPORTED HEARING A NOISE 'AS IF SOMETHING BROKE' JUST AFTER THE HELICOPTER CLEARED THE TREES. THE HELICOPTER YAWED RIGHT AND PITCHED DOWN. THE PILOT APPLIED LEFT RUDDER PEDAL AND FULL AFT CYCLIC IN AN ATTEMPT TO RECOVER, BUT THE HELICOPTER IMPACTED THE GROUND AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODED AREA. POST-IMPACT FIRE ENSUED. INVESTIGATORS FOUND NO INDICATION OF PRE-IMPACT POWER LOSS OR LOSS OF TAIL SECTION CONTINUITY. EXAMINATION OF THE FLIGHT CONTROLS TO THE MAIN ROTOR SYSTEM REVEALED THAT A NUT AND BOLT WERE MISSING FROM ONE END OF THE FORE AND AFT CYCLIC CONTROL ROD.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INABILITY TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE HELICOPTER AFTER THE LOSS OF A PORTION OF THE CYCLIC CONTROL ASSEMBLY; THIS RESULTED IN GROUND IMPACT AND POST-IMPACT FIRE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90DGM03
- Event ID
- 20001212X24340
- Case number
- NYC90DGM03
- 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: cca7064bfc2b480443e97328699952064cb9613edf67b1fc73af075f214f8a5a; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:43:46.000Z.