Mercy Flight Central Agustawestland Philadelphia Co AW119MKII accident
Agustawestland Philadelphia Co AW119MKII · Accident: hard landing
From Strong Memorial Hospital Heliport (2NY5) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA387
- 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
- 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
Agustawestland Philadelphia Co AW119MKII
- Aircraft type
- Agustawestland Philadelphia AW119
- 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
- N281MC
- Operator
- Mercy Flight Central
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Strong Memorial Hospital Heliport (2NY5), Rochester, NYTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2022)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter pilot and two medical crewmembers were returning to base at night after completing a patient drop-off at a nearby hospital. The takeoff and cruise portions of the flight were routine. Approaching the landing zone while using night vision goggles, the pilot allowed the helicopter pitch to increase while at a low engine power demand, resulting in the helicopter entering a rapid descent. Recorded flight data showed a late attempt to recover; however, the helicopter struck the ground hard at a descent rate greater than 600 ft/minute, lunged forward, and spun to the right about 220° before coming to a stop. The helicopter was substantially damaged, and the two medical crewmembers had minor injuries; the pilot was unhurt. An examination of the wreckage after the accident did not reveal evidence of a mechanical malfunction or anomaly that would have precluded normal operation. No crew alerting system (CAS) messages were received before impact, and the engine continued to operate after the helicopter came to a rest.
Probable cause
The pilot’s excessive descent rate during the final approach for landing and his delayed recovery attempt, resulting in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA387
- Event ID
- 20240920195147
- Case number
- ERA24LA387
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2024-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ed6f837f23253cc1ec04cbc5a297c9b5d3895d46764c253cf6bd97135b72bac0; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:17:13.457Z.