ATL89FA220 · Aerospatiale AS 350D
Dooley Helicopters Aerospatiale AS 350D · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Rome, GA to DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89FA220
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Aerospatiale AS 350D
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-350
- 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
- N57689
- Operator
- Dooley Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rome, GATo DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Chamblee, GA
- 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
- 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
- Maintenance, lubrication › Inadequate
- Rotorcraft flight control, swashplate assembly › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE HELICOPTER APPROACHED THE AIRPORT, IT WAS OBSERVED TO PITCH UP & YAW UNCONTROLLABLY. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE ROTOR SYSTEM SLOWED AS THE HELICOPTER DESCENDED TO IMPACT ON A CITY GOLF COURSE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE MAIN ROTOR SWASHPLATE BEARING HAD FAILED FROM INADEQUATE LUBRICATION. THE STATIONARY SWASHPLATE VENTING HOLE HAD NOT BEEN BLOCKED OFF IN ACCORDANCE WITH AEROSPATIALE SVC BULLETIN #62.02. THE PURPOSE OF THE SVC BULLETIN WAS TO PREVENT LEAKAGE OF THE LUBRICANT. THE SWASHPLATE BEARING HAD BEEN LUBRICATED 249 HRS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. PRIORITY AD 89-21-01 WAS ISSUED TO REDUCE THE LUBRICATION INTERVAL FROM 400 TO 100 HOURS & TO BLOCK THE VENT HOLE IN THE STATIONARY SWASHPLATE. THE FUEL FLOW CONTROL LEVER & FUEL SHUT-OFF CONTROL WERE FOUND IN THE CLOSED POSITION (AS IF THE PLT HAD SHUT DOWN THE ENG BEFORE THE ACDNT).
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE MAIN ROTOR SWASHPLATE BEARING DUE TO LACK OF LUBRICANT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89FA220
- Event ID
- 20001213X29293
- Case number
- ATL89FA220
- 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: 54e30774fda9b59069a7235f7a1d62a45fca18c72cec1fe7c55258e24bfbcd42; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:08:17.779Z.