ERA19TA005 · Enstrom F28 C
J&J Shop Heliair Enstrom F28 C · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Bridgeville, DE to Bridgeville, DE
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19TA005
- 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
Enstrom F28 C
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F28
- 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
- N5691Y
- Operator
- J&J Shop Heliair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bridgeville, DETo Bridgeville, DE
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
The commercial pilot had performed numerous local sightseeing helicopter flights the day of the accident. During the accident flight lift off from the field with power lines and farm equipment nearby, the pilot increased the throttle to the maximum engine and rotor rpm and began a climbing left turn toward power lines, during which he noticed the rotor rpm slowing. He slightly decreased collective pitch and further increased the throttle, but the rotor rpm did not increase. The pilot then increased collective pitch even farther as the helicopter cleared the power lines, which exacerbated the low rotor rpm state and was contrary to guidance published in the helicopter's pilot's operating handbook. The pilot's power management allowed the rotor rpm to decay below a point at which sustained flight was possible. Subsequently, the helicopter descended and impacted an open field hard, which resulted in substantial damage to the tailboom and tail rotor. The pilot did not report any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter, which was confirmed by a postaccident examination and test run of the helicopter's engine. The pilot's mismanagement of collective pitch control led to the helicopter entering a low rotor rpm state and its subsequent inability to maintain flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's mismanagement of collective pitch control during takeoff from an area with numerous obstacles, which resulted in the helicopter entering a low rotor rpm state and a forced hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19TA005
- Event ID
- 20181007X13002
- Case number
- ERA19TA005
- 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: dd2459b4f7b5c01805d41bf570bf7a61efae7d5601de77ce2b010cecea15af2e; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:18:50.983Z.