C J Systems Aviation Group Aerospatiale AS355F1 accident
Aerospatiale AS355F1 · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during takeoff
From Madison, FL to Perry, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03FA120
- 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
- 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 AS355F1
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS355
- 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
- N217ES
- Operator
- C J Systems Aviation Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Madison, FLTo Perry, 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 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that after the patient had been loaded on the helicopter, and the other crewmembers had secured themselves inside, he picked the helicopter up into a 3-foot hover, glanced at the gauges, and then looked up again and the helicopter rolled hard to the right with the blades impacting the ground. He said the main rotor blades struck the ground the helicopter rotated 90 degrees to the left, and came to rest on its right side. A flight crew member in the back of the helicopter said that after they had all been secured for takeoff, she looked out through the right window and advised "all clear." She further stated that the helicopter then lifted off, and immediately started falling, with the rotor blades impacting the ground, which caused it to fall. A witness stated that he observed the helicopter lift off the ground, perform a quarter turn to the left, facing north, and hover for a few seconds, before starting to roll to the right side, which immediately caused the main rotors to strike the ground, and the helicopter crashed on its right side. Examination of the helicopter and its systems did not reveal the existence of any preaccident anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot in command's diverted attention and loss of control while attempting to takeoff, which resulted in the main rotor blades being dragged, and the helicopter rolling over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03FA120
- Event ID
- 20030625X00952
- Case number
- MIA03FA120
- 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: e1d3571da8e686ca5d466ee5e8c05b7586de624ad842e348fecd508f914a706f; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:46:49.524Z.