Island Helicopter Aerospatiale SA-360C accident
Aerospatiale SA-360C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84LA320
- 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
- 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
Aerospatiale SA-360C
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale SA-360
- 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
- N49533
- Operator
- Island Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, NYTo 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 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
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Engine assembly › Failure, partial
- Engine assembly › Undetermined
- Pilot in command › Collective, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flare, not attained
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, inadequate
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
DURING APPROACH TO HELIPORT, THE PLT HEARD TWO LOUD 'POPS' FROM THE ENGINE. THE PLT ACTIVATED THE EMERGENCY FLOATS AND CONTINUED THE APPROACH. THE PLT STATED THAT THE 'POPPING', RECOGNIZED AS A COMPRESSOR STALL STARTED AGAIN ON FINAL. HE LOWERED THE COLLECTIVE AND THE ACFT DESCENDED RAPIDLY WHICH TERMINATED WITH A HARD LANDING. THE TAIL BOOM BECAME DISCONNECTED FROM THE MAIN BODY AND THE ROTOR BLADE STRUCK THE VERTICAL FIN. THERE WAS NO INDICATION OF THE REASON FOR THE COMPRESSOR STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84LA320
- Event ID
- 20001214X41215
- Case number
- NYC84LA320
- 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: 41d6e7d4ed2f8abac93849d9184e712aebbae98869f42dfcf12db328bed79283; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:36:51.931Z.