ERA15LA218 · Bell 206L-3
New York Helicopter Bell 206L-3 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while maneuvering
From Helo Kearny Heliport (65NJ) to Downtown Skyport Heliport (JRB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA218
- 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
Bell 206L-3
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- N210MH
- Operator
- New York Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Helo Kearny Heliport (65NJ), Kearny, NJTo Downtown Skyport Heliport (JRB), New York, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 25 years (built 1990)
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-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
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during a 20-ft hover, the helicopter spun right. The pilot made left pedal inputs; however, the helicopter then rotated three times to the right. The pilot decreased the throttle and increased the collective before the helicopter landed hard.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed that the No. 5 tail rotor driveshaft tube had separated from its bonded flange adapter, where it had been secured by adhesive. The driveshaft tube had been freshly painted. When some of the paint was removed, hand written markings in red ink reading "X," ".004," and ".024" were noted on the tube. The numbers were on either end of the tube and were likely measured runout values for the shaft, and, because they exceeded the maximum runout requirement of .003 inch, the "X" mark was made to indicate that the tail rotor shaft was unairworthy. However, at some point after the red markings were made, the unairworthy shaft was repainted by unknown personnel, which obscured the markings. It is likely that the driveshaft became imbalanced because it was beyond its runout tolerance, which led to the overstress separation of the tube from the bonded flange adapter. A representative of the current owner reported that the owner had recently purchased the helicopter. About 5 years before the purchase, the helicopter had experienced a hard landing, and it had not been flown during the subsequent 5 years. The current owner received the helicopter with the driveshaft freshly painted. When he inquired about the fresh paint, the previous owner told him that the driveshaft was purchased at auction. The current owner did not receive serviceable tags with the driveshaft but did receive an auction invoice; however, no serial numbers were listed on the invoice. The serial number format found etched on the driveshaft did not match any known records. Therefore, the investigation could not determine if the separated driveshaft was the same driveshaft that was installed on the helicopter when it experienced the hard landing. As a result of the accident examination, the helicopter manufacturer submitted a suspected unapproved parts report to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Probable cause
The deliberate concealment and reuse of an unairworthy tail rotor driveshaft by unknown personnel, which resulted in an overstress separation at a bonded flange adapter as a result of driveshaft imbalance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA218
- Event ID
- 20150521X33954
- Case number
- ERA15LA218
- 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: 307f6bc86d3c3ee34972e19e2ceb495eff8c902948fbee0f2b1273878c518dc8; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:20:25.084Z.