ERA13LA018 · Sikorsky S-55B
Sikorsky S-55B · Accident: settling with power/vortex ring state on approach
From Newton Airport (3N5) to Sikorsky Heliport (JSD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA018
- 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-55B
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-55
- 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
- N443FD
- Operator
- Sparta Rotors
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newton Airport (3N5), Newton, NJTo Sikorsky Heliport (JSD), Stratford, CT
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Settling with power/vortex ring state
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the pilot heard an unusual noise and, after circling while attempting to determine the source of the noise, he elected to perform a precautionary landing to a nearby farm field. During the approach to land with a quartering tailwind, the pilot used the collective to arrest the descent rate; however, after having used the full travel of the collective with no appreciable reduction in the descent rate, the helicopter landed in the soft ground, all four landing gear sank, and the helicopter rolled over and came to rest on its left side. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions or anomalies were noted that would have precluded normal operation. A nearby weather recording station recorded the wind about the time of the accident as being from the north-northwest at 12 knots, gusting to 16 knots. According to the pilot, the helicopter was moving forward at a speed of about 10 knots at touchdown. Considering the tailwind and the helicopter's low airspeed, it is likely that the airspeed slowed to the point where the helicopter lost translational lift and began to settle with power.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to perform a downwind precautionary landing and the helicopter’s resultant settling with power and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA018
- Event ID
- 20121015X91617
- Case number
- ERA13LA018
- 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. 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: 0d0466fa3d2c30ef290ddafaa33620f21f0a9edbfa0dd1fb2a1f2561f8047cf9; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:10:20.928Z.