MKC87IA070 · Agusta A109
Agusta A109 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure while taxiing
From Omaha, NE to Lincoln Airport (LNK)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC87IA070
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Agusta A109
- 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
- N4GH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Omaha, NETo Lincoln Airport (LNK), Lincoln, NE
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Rotor drive system, tail rotor drive shaft › Failure, total
- Rotor drive system, tail rotor drive shaft › Overtorque
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PIC STATED THAT HE WAS GROUND TAXIING THE HELO TO THE RAMP AREA AT DUNCAN AVIATION TO SHUTDOWN FOR REFUELING. DURING THE TAXI, THE PIC HEARD A LOUD 'BANG' EMINATING FM THE REAR OF THE HELO. THE PIC LOWERED COLLECTIVE PITCH AND NO FURTHER NOISE WAS HEARD AND NO VIBRATION WAS FELT. THE PIC RE-APPLIED COLLECTIVE PITCH TO MOVE FORWARD WHEN THE HELO BEGAN TO YAW AND VIBRATE. AT THIS POINT THE PIC LOWERED COLLECTIVE TO FLAT PITCH AND SHUTDOWN THE ENG. REMOVAL REVEALED A BROKEN PORTION OF THE T/R DRIVESHAFT ABOUT 1 FT FORWARD OF THE GEARBOX. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION BY THE NTSB LAB AND AN INDEPENDENT METALLURGIST CONCLUDED THAT THE DRIVESHAFT FAILED IN A MANNER CHARACTERISTIC OF TORSIONAL OVERLOAD. THE PIC STATED THAT NO CONTACT WITH THE GRND OR STATIONARY OBJECT HAD OCCURRED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC87IA070
- Event ID
- 20001213X30519
- Case number
- MKC87IA070
- 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: c713440fd62166481926577ee7ed13724870e2529c332dc346ae3b384ebc9734; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:22:28.101Z.