FTW03FA211 · Agusta A109E
Agusta A109E · Accident: loss of engine power during takeoff
From Dallas, TX to Crowley, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03FA211
- 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 A109E
- Aircraft type
- Agusta A109
- 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
- N143CF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas, TXTo Crowley, TX
- 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During departure from a rooftop helipad, the pilot reported the helicopter sustained a loss of engine power and he aborted the takeoff. During the aborted takeoff, a main landing gear struck a safety fence, the main rotor blades contacted the helipad, the helicopter rolled over and came to rest on the helipad. According to the pilot and medical crew, the engine start-up and before takeoff checks were normal. While in a 3 to 4-foot hover above the helipad, the pilot verified the engine and systems prior to departure. As the helicopter transitioned over the edge of the rooftop, the engine warning horn sounded and warning and caution lights illuminated. The medical crew reported the engine and rotor noise suddenly decreased, and noticed a slight drop in altitude. After the helicopter came to rest, the engines were still running at an unknown power level, and the pilot and medical crew shutdown the engines. No anomalies were noted during the functional tests and examinations of the engines and helicopter systems. The reason for the reported loss of engine power was not determined.
Probable cause
The reported loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the failure to maintain clearance with the safety fence during the aborted takeoff, which resulted in a dynamic rollover of the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03FA211
- Event ID
- 20030911X01517
- Case number
- FTW03FA211
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-09-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2b719f2ad20339e238dea9697a85a599ee631c6d38f1df3687c5903026e5af73; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:22:44.862Z.