DFW06LA057 · Agusta A109E
Agusta A109E · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while taxiing
From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (KFTW) to Grand Prairie Municipal Airport (KGPM)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06LA057
- 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
- N142CF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (KFTW), Fort Worth, TXTo Grand Prairie Municipal Airport (KGPM), Grand Prairie, 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
- Taxi
- 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 control on ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Ground resonance, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 6,500-hour commercial helicopter rated pilot inadvertently encountered ground resonance while ground taxiing. The pilot performed a normal startup and prepared for ground taxi. He moved the helicopter forward and then started the helicopter in a 90-degree ground taxi turn at 30-degree intervals. He pushed on the toe brakes to stop the helicopter to give right of way to an aircraft taxiing down the taxiway. At this time the helicopter started to shake and bounce. Before the pilot could get the aircraft shutdown, the aircraft executed an uncommanded 90-degree turn to the left. The helicopter's main rotors and transmission assembly separated from the airframe. The wind at the time of the accident was reported to be from 170 degrees at 17 knots, gusting to 23 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent encounter with ground resonance which resulted in the destruction of the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06LA057
- Event ID
- 20060130X00132
- Case number
- DFW06LA057
- 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: a995fe95e5064f0c0790d48a437b213b65dfaf987a349725902f3e6f468e6453; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:09:09.588Z.