Paramount Aviation Agusta A109A MKII accident
Agusta A109A MKII · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From 6N4 · New York City, NY to Atlantic City International Airport (ACY)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90MA009
- 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
- 5 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Agusta A109A MKII
- Aircraft type
- Agusta A109
- 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
- N21FL
- Operator
- Paramount Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6N4 · New York City, NYTo Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Atlantic City, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Manufacturer › Inadequate quality control
- Rotor system, main rotor blade spar › Fatigue
- Rotor system, main rotor blade › Separation
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
AS THE HELICOPTER WAS IN CRUISE FLT AT AN ALT OF 2200' MSL, A PORTION OF ONE OF THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES SEPARATED. THE SUBSEQUENT IMBALANCE RESULTED IN SEPARATION OF THE TRANSMISSION & MAIN ROTOR ASSEMBLY FROM THE HELICOPTER. THE HELICOPTER THEN CRASHED IN AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT. A METALLURGICAL EXAM OF THE SEPARATED BLADE REVEALED THAT IT HAD FAILED FROM FATIGUE. THE FRACTURE HAD INITIATED AT A MANUFACTURING INDUCED SCRATCH IN THE SPAR OF THE BLADE. THE SCRATCH WAS ON THE INNER SURFACE OF THE SPAR AT BLADE STATION 2825 (IN MILLIMETERS), NEAR THE LEAD BALANCE WT. IT WAS IN LINE WITH THE EDGE OF THE ADHESIVE FILET. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THE CRACK ORIGINATED WHERE A SHARP TOOL WAS USED TO TRIM THE EDGE OF THE ADHESIVE FILET. THE BLADE FRACTURED AFTER 922 HRS OF OPERATION.
Probable cause
IN-FLIGHT SEPARATION OF A MAIN ROTOR BLADE DUE TO FATIGUE FAILURE OF THE MAIN ROTOR BLADE SPAR, WHICH ORIGINATED AT A MANUFACTURING INDUCED SCRATCH (TOOL MARK) THAT WAS THE RESULT OF INADEQUATE QUALITY CONTROL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90MA009
- Event ID
- 20001213X29709
- Case number
- NYC90MA009
- 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: 54e67adbba09cc0d7cfd4d46fbe75d550deb4ddd52101e87fb388becd9e87536; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:07:54.309Z.