CEN16LA401 · Agustawestland Philadelphia AW139
Chevron USA Agustawestland Philadelphia AW139 · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From South Lafourche Leonard Miller Jr Airport (GAO) to South Lafourche Leonard Miller Jr Airport (GAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA401
- 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
- 0
- 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
Agustawestland Philadelphia AW139
- Aircraft type
- Agustawestland Philadelphia AW139
- 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
- N639NA
- Operator
- Chevron USA
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South Lafourche Leonard Miller Jr Airport (GAO), Galliano, LATo South Lafourche Leonard Miller Jr Airport (GAO), Galliano, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2013)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a business flight over the Gulf of Mexico, the crew felt a slight vibration of the tail rotor with no other anomalies noted and landed the helicopter uneventfully at their planned destination. A postflight inspection revealed that one of the tail rotor blade erosion shield extensions, also known as a lightning strip (LS), was missing and that only its side tabs remained attached to the blade. One of the main rotor blade tips sustained substantial damage when the LS separated from the tail rotor blade and impacted the bottom of the main rotor blade.
Metallurgical analysis of the fractured LS revealed microcavities in the metal, which resulted in a fatigue fracture. The helicopter manufacturer concluded that the microcavities were a direct result of the electroplating manufacturing process. Finite element modeling (FEM) of an exemplar LS revealed that the maximum stress values expected during flight were considerably lower than the fatigue limit specified for the electroplated nickel material. The microcavity observed on the accident LS could not be replicated by the FEM model, but the presence of a microcavity could adversely influence the in-flight stresses and reduce the overall strength of the LS. Additional flight testing with strain gauges did not reveal any load condition that would lead to similar LS failures that were experienced during the accident flight. It is likely the LS separated in flight due to a fatigue fracture that was the result of increased stress in the presence of a material flaw that had existed since its manufacture.
The helicopter manufacturer, in response to multiple reports of similar LS failures, changed the material specification from electroplated nickel to a higher strength steel. The steel LS will be installed on all newly built helicopters, and an optional service bulletin will be issued to operators to provide the steel LS upon request.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of a tail rotor blade erosion shield extension, which resulted in in-flight damage to a main rotor blade.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA401
- Event ID
- 20180509X55948
- Case number
- CEN16LA401
- 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: 996a30eacafb48efefa481c977e1847f4d83163b5ef29f979e62bf10365a4b61; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:07:14.410Z.