MIA02TA109 · Agusta A119
Agusta A119 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE) to Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02TA109
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 A119
- Aircraft type
- Agusta A119
- 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
- N911SL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE), Okeechobee, FLTo Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, FL
- 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
- En route · climb to 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Failure
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Just after takeoff from the hospital helicopter-pad, at an altitude of about 250 feet, the pilot reported hearing and feeling "a loud bang," and the helicopter "yawed to the right." The paramedic in the rear of the helicopter stated that she saw parts of the tail rotor go by the left side of the helicopter. The pilot turned the helicopter to the right 270 degrees, and elected to perform a run-on landing in a cow pasture. After touchdown the helicopter skidded several feet, and nosed down in the dirt, resulting in the main rotor blades making contact with the tailboom and subsequently separating the tailboom from the fuselage. Laboratory examination revealed that the fracture of one of the tail rotor blades, was a result of fatigue cracking in the blade spar.
Probable cause
the fracture of one of the tail rotor blades as a result of fatigue cracking in the blade spar, and subsquent impact of the main rotor with the tailboom.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02TA109
- Event ID
- 20020614X00883
- Case number
- MIA02TA109
- 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, coordinates. 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: 786166c7d3696a9d72d1c52cb98eef99c8bede560b5fd96cd1c2632ddc4c676b; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:51:06.919Z.