NYC03LA037 · Sikorsky S-61A
Sikorsky S-61A · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Glady, WV (no airport) to Glady, WV (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA037
- 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
Sikorsky S-61A
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-61
- 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
- N8170V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glady, WV (no airport)To Glady, WV (no airport)
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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 · hover out of ground effect
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter came out of maintenance, the captain and first officer conducted a test flight, and then ferried it to the area of operation. The next day, the captain entered a 155-foot out of ground effect hover, and an external load was connected. About the same time, the helicopter started a slow uncommanded yaw to the right. The captain applied full left pedal, released the load, and entered an autorotation. Examination of the tailrotor control system revealed that the left anti-torque control cable was broken. The break was associated with a pulley assembly, the cable strands were bent rearward, and deformed. The cable fracture surfaces were irregular, and also deformed. The associated keeper pins displayed wear marks, and light scratches consistent with control cable contact. The associated pulley was intact. The pulley channel contained an oil-based debris, and control cable fragments. Both tailrotor cables were removed and reinstalled within the last 5.3 hours of operation by company maintenance personnel.
Probable cause
The improper installation of the left tailrotor control cable by company maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA037
- Event ID
- 20030203X00141
- Case number
- NYC03LA037
- 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: fab893dc7227dfd997e18ccc7b7468e5da831f22a025b5589aeea92d4c8827d2; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:31:50.919Z.