NYC87MA024 · Enstrom F-28F
Spectrum Helicopters Enstrom F-28F · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Ridgefield Park, NJ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87MA024
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Enstrom F-28F
- 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
- N8617B
- Operator
- Spectrum Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ridgefield Park, NJTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, improper
- Rotor drive system, freewheeling sprag unit › Failure, total
- Rotor drive system, freewheeling sprag unit › Incorrect
- Rotor system, main rotor blade › Movement restricted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS CONTRACTED BY NBC TO MAKE DAILY HIGHWAY TRAFFIC OBSERVATIONS IN THE NEW YORK CITY AREA. THE PILOT AND PASSENGER, AN NBC RADIO TRAFFIC REPORTER, WERE FLYING IN A NORTHERLY DIRECTION ALONG MANHATTAN'S WEST SIDE AT AN ALTITUDE OF ABOUT 75 FEET. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE AIRCRAFT'S MAIN ROTOR BLADES STOP, THE AIRCRAFT DESCENDED RAPIDLY, STRUCK THE TOP OF A CHAIN LINK FENCE AT A RIVER PIER, CRASHED INTO THE HUDSON RIVER AND SANK IN 15 TO 20 FEET OF WATER. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE SPRAG CLUTCH WAS INADEQUATELY LUBRICATED, HAD 'ROLLED OVER' IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF ITS DESIGN AND THE SPRAG ASSEMBLY WAS DAMAGED. SEVERAL SPRAGS AND BOTH ACTIVATING SPRINGS WERE BROKEN AND DIFFERENT SIZE SPRAGS WERE INSTALLED. AN UNAUTHORIZED, OVERHAULED CLUTCH HAD BEEN INSTALLED IN THE AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87MA024
- Event ID
- 20001213X35064
- Case number
- NYC87MA024
- 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: 1c8c809e2067f8eda15ac17db797efd11618cf568b5bc65b19882e0f344ecda0; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:21:33.748Z.