Petroleum Helicopters International Sikorsky S-76C++ accident
Sikorsky S-76C++ · Accident: dynamic rollover during landing
From Boothville, LA to Gulf of Mexico
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10FA079
- 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
Sikorsky S-76C++
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-76
- 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
- N798P
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boothville, LATo Gulf of Mexico
- 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
- Landing
- Defining eventThe 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 made an approach to the off-shore platform landing pad directly into a 30-knot headwind. Upon landing, the tail rotor was blocking the emergency exit, so the pilot maneuvered the wheeled helicopter approximately 70 degrees to the right while the copilot made sure the tail rotor was clear of the exit. As the pilot was completing the turn, the helicopter began to roll rapidly to the right and onto its right side. The main rotor blades made contact with the platform and the helicopter was substantially damaged. Data downloaded from the flight data recorder and enhanced ground proximity warning system revealed the pilot did not fully land the helicopter prior to the ground taxi and still had a high power setting, a high nose attitude, and the collective was not in the full down position as it was being repositioned. As a result, the helicopter entered a dynamic rollover.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to fully land the helicopter prior to entering a turn in strong, crosswind conditions, which resulted in a dynamic rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10FA079
- Event ID
- 20091228X02839
- Case number
- CEN10FA079
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: e48107254c85c0e9e47455d62d8384ae2a0d6e0e03f67dba26e76845619356c6; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:35:22.942Z.