Cougar Helicopters Flight 91
Sikorsky S-92A · Main gearbox malfunction leading to collision with water
From St. John's International Airport (YYT) to SeaRose FPSO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09RA205
- 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
- Final · TSB final report, 29 Dec 2010
- Event fatalities
- 17 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 18
- Survivors
- 1
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 1
- 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
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Sikorsky S-92A
- Flight
- CHI91
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-92
- 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
- C-GZCH
- Operator
- Cougar Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- 17
- Route
- From St. John's International Airport (YYT)To SeaRose FPSO
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Cougar Helicopters Flight 91 was a scheduled flight of a Cougar Sikorsky S-92A, which ditched on 12 March 2009 en route to the SeaRose FPSO in the White Rose oil field and Hibernia Platform in the Hibernia oilfield off the coast of Newfoundland 55 km east-southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland. Of the 18 aboard, only one survived.
Flight
Cougar 91 is a regular 90-minute, 315 km shuttle flight from St. John's International Airport, usually servicing the SeaRose FPSO. The flight was carrying workers to SeaRose and the Hibernia platform. The flight was under the command of Matthew Davis (34), with Tim Lanouette (47), as first officer.
A mayday call was issued after the aircraft reported zero oil pressure in the main gearbox at 9:40 a.m. NDT (12:10 UTC). Flight 91 attempted to return to St. John's but went down at 9:48 a.m. The aircraft was spotted, floating upside down, by a Provincial Airlines ice patrol airplane 25 minutes later. It later sank in 178 m of water. Only one of the eighteen people aboard survived the sinking, although another managed to exit the aircraft.. All the 17 victims died of drowning.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation was led by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), which assigned an initial team of twelve investigators, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. As the state of manufacture, the United States was represented by eight investigators, from the National Transportation Safety Board, assisted by the FAA and Sikorsky.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Cougar Helicopters Flight 91” (revision 1372582369, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
Not required for RA.
Probable cause
Not required for RA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Cougar Helicopters Flight 91
- Article
- Cougar Helicopters Flight 91
- Revision
- 1372582369 · 2026-09-01 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q10748098
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record CEN09RA205
- Event ID
- 20090312X15814
- Case number
- CEN09RA205
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Cougar Helicopters Flight 91" (page 21944168, revision 1372582369); merged with NTSB case CEN09RA205 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date; matches the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) final report
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates; matches the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) final report
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record CEN09RA205
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities; matches the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) final report
- Ground fatalities
- Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) final report
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Cougar Helicopters Flight 91" and NTSB case CEN09RA205, matched by the same flight number and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- Checked against the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) final report (2010-12-29) on 2026-09-18. The report states the same date, crash-site coordinates, flight number, fatalities, registration, operator, departure and damage. Taken from the report: ground fatalities. Shown unchanged where the report gives another value or wording: destination (shown SeaRose FPSO; report Hibernia oil production platform). Not checked: place, aircraft type and type of operation.