NYC91LA040 · Enstrom F-28C
Enstrom F-28C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From an unrecorded airport to Trenton Mercer Airport (TTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA040
- 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-28C
- 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
- N4953X
- Operator
- Jerry Engel
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Trenton Mercer Airport (TTN), Trenton, NJ
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, rebuild/remanufacture, improper
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, replacement, not performed
- Rotorcraft flight control, cyclic bellcrank › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
IN CRUISE FLT THE HELICOPTER UNEXPECTEDLY ROLLED 90 DEGREES LEFT. THE PILOT AUTOROTATED TO A LANDING, ROLLING OVER UPON TOUCHDOWN. THE LEFT SIDE CABIN MOUNT BRACKET WHICH HOLDS THE INTERMEDIATE BELLCRANK FOR LATERAL CONTROL HAD FRACTURED. THE FRACTURE SURFACE BORE EVIDENCE OF OVERLOAD AND FATIGUE. THE BELLCRANK WAS TIGHT IN THE CABIN MOUNT BRACKET. IN ADDITION, THE RIGHT SIDE CABIN MOUNT BRACKET WHICH HOLD THE INTERMEDIATE BELLCRANK FOR FORE AND AFT CONTROL HAD A CRACK. THE FRACTURE SURFACE WAS TYPICAL OF OVERLOAD. THE HELICOPTER HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN INVOLVED IN A HARD LANDING WITH A BLADE STRIKE ON THE TAIL BOOM. NO RECORDS WERE AVAILABLE TO INDICATE THE REPAIRS CONDUCTED. ACCORDING TO ENSTROM HELICOPTERS, THESE FRACTURES ARE TYPICALLY SEEN FOLLOWING A BLADE STRIKE. ACCORDING TO AN ENSTROM HELICOPTERS SERVICE LETTER, '...CYCLIC AND COLLECTIVE TORQUE TUBES, BELLCRANKS, AND FITTING...' ARE REQUIRED INSPECTIONS ITEMS FOLLOWING A BLADE STRIKE.
Probable cause
AN INFLIGHT FAILURE OF THE LEFT SIDE CABIN MOUNT BRACKET WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF LATERAL CYCLIC CONTROL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: AN INCOMPLETE INSPECTION OF THE HELICOPTER FOLLOWING A HARD LANDING WITH A BLADE STRIKE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA040
- Event ID
- 20001212X24691
- Case number
- NYC91LA040
- 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: b50bca762573b4cf7f3b96ebaa48b616673594f1a00cce26082ca9c02edfe169; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:08:13.879Z.