SEA89LA007 · Aerospatiale SA341G
Aerospatiale SA341G · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From DENIO, NV to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89LA007
- 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
Aerospatiale SA341G
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale SA341
- 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
- N401S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DENIO, NVTo 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
- Approach
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Rotorcraft flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THAT AS HE WAS IN A SLOW DESCENDING TURN TO THE LEFT AT ABOUT 20 KTS (TRANSLATIONAL LIFT). THE HELICOPTER SUDDENLY ROTATED TO THE LEFT WITHOUT WARNING. HE ESTIMATED THAT THIS OCCURRED AT ABOUT 30 FT AGL. HE APPLIED RIGHT PEDAL & THE ROTATION STOPPED IN A SLIGHT NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE AFTER ABOUT 2 TURNS. ALSO, THE PLT NOTICED THAT THE ENG WAS NOT PROVIDING POWER; HE PRESUMED THE FUEL LIMITER HAD RESTRICTED THE FLOW OF FUEL TO THE ENG, CAUSING A REDUCTION OF POWER. BEFORE TOUCHDOWN, THE PLT APPLIED COLLECTIVE TO CUSHION THE LANDING, BUT THE RIGHT SKID WAS DAMAGED & THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES FLEXED DOWNWARD & CONTACTED THE TAIL BOOM. THE DENSITY ALT WAS COMPUTED TO BE NEAR 6000 FT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89LA007
- Event ID
- 20001213X27171
- Case number
- SEA89LA007
- 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: e47b64ab00e67bd8d97ad7b2ffcb0126c49d93fe5215e4df026a82d7066665e0; retrieved 2026-09-23T08:40:22.122Z.