Mayeux'S Flying Service Sikorsky S 76B B accident
Sikorsky S 76B B · Accident: settling with power/vortex ring state during takeoff
From Myu Heliport (LS97) to GC18 · Offshore, GM
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14CA082
- 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 76B B
- 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
- N707MY
- Operator
- Mayeux'S Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Myu Heliport (LS97), Port Fourchon, LATo GC18 · Offshore, GM
- Aircraft age
- About 27 years (built 1986)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was departing from a helipad and all cockpit instrument indications were "in green" status. Wind was very calm to none and the pilot verified it by looking at two flags on an offshore vessel. Another aircraft took off from the helipad and departed to the east. The pilot hover taxied to the west of the flight area with a right petal turn. He rechecked the instruments, which were "all normal." He added power and the flight was normal as the helicopter was climbing. The helicopter was about 40 to 50 feet over a roadway and it started to settle. He added more power and it looked as if it was going to recover. Then the helicopter started to sink again. There were occupied trailers under the helicopter and obstacles blocking a nearby field. The pilot elected to head left of course for less impact with anything on the ground or with property. The helicopter impacted terrain where it sustained substantial tailboom and fuselage damage. The pilot reported that the helicopter was within weight and balance requirements and that there were no mechanical malfunctions. Following the impact, he noticed that the previously observed flags were now showing the wind was blowing and gusting from the southwest direction.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control of the helicopter when it entered a settling with power condition during sudden gusty wind conditions on takeoff resulting in the helicopter subsequently impacting terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14CA082
- Event ID
- 20131210X71003
- Case number
- CEN14CA082
- 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: 98a471853a79893051f4032d57ce4ae31aa1b5a298b7d68d4b999baa79be2ec7; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:10:53.236Z.