2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash
CHC Helicopter for Irish Coast Guard Sikorsky S-92A · Controlled flight into terrain in poor weather, at night
From Dublin Airport (DUB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17RA131
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 4
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Government
- 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
- 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
- EI-ICR
- Onboard fatalities
- 4
- Route
- From Dublin Airport (DUB)To not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
In the early hours of 14 March 2017, a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter operated by CHC Helicopter under contract to the Irish Coast Guard (call sign Rescue 116) crashed into Blackrock, an offshore lighthouse, while supporting a rescue operation off County Mayo, on Ireland's west coast. All four crew members on board, Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Chief Pilot Mark Duffy, winch operator Paul Ormsby, and winch man Ciarán Smith were killed.
Events
During the evening of 13 March 2017, the Malin Head Coastguard took a call from the captain of a fishing boat 250 km off the west coast, who reported that one of his crew had suffered an accident in which he had lost part of his thumb. The decision was made to evacuate the casualty to hospital, and two helicopters were despatched for this purpose: Rescue 118 would winch the injured fisherman on board and transport him to land, while Rescue 116 would provide communications relay support.
Rescue 118 took off from its base at Sligo at around 10:30 and, after a refuelling stop at Blacksod Lighthouse, proceeded to meet the fishing boat. Rescue 116, based in Dublin, took off just before 11pm, and headed to Blacksod to refuel, a journey of 1¾ hours. Approaching Blacksod over the sea at 200', the crew failed to see Blackrock Island, 9.5nmi west of Blacksod, until it was too late. Despite a last-moment evasive manoeuvre, at 12:46am the helicopter struck the western slope of the island. The collision damaged the tail structure rendering the helicopter uncontrollable, and it tumbled into the sea off the eastern side of Blackrock. The alarm was raised by the crew of the lighthouse when the helicopter failed to arrive as expected, prompting the Marine Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Dublin to declare an emergency.
Once Rescue 118 had finished winching the injured fisherman on board, it flew to Blacksod where it located the body of R116's captain in the water; the body was retrieved by the RNLI Achill lifeboat. Rescue 115, the Shannon-based Coast Guard helicopter, was dispatched to the area to aid in the search for the other three crew members, along with a CASA CN-235 maritime patrol aircraft from the Irish Air Corps.
On 18 March, the funeral for Captain Dara Fitzpatrick was held, in Glencullen, County Dublin.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation on the accident was conducted by the Air Accident Investigation Unit. Two of its investigators arrived in Blacksod on the morning of the accident.
On 16 March, AAIU investigators were airlifted onto Blackrock, where they recovered some debris from the helicopter: the horizontal stabiliser, a wheel rim, parts of the intermediate gear box (located at the base of the tail), and small fragments of the tail rotor. From the examination of these items AAIU investigators believe that the helicopter had clipped the island close to the lighthouse, and subsequently crashed out of control into the sea. Blackrock was registered in the craft's GPS mapping system but not on EGPWS, a legacy capable Class A terrain awareness and warning system designed for digitally equipped aircraft.
The AAIU found no mechanical anomalies from the flight recorder data, and therefore no additional safety actions were required on similar helicopter types.
Initially the Air Accident Investigation Unit was due to release an initial version of the final report into the crash in November 2019. But the report was delayed, because it needed to be reviewed, this is the first report to be reviewed in the 25-year history of the AAIU.
At the end the final report was released by the Air Accident Investigation Unit on 5 November 2021 after a two-year extension due to the review. Concluding that the probable cause was that while the helicopter was flying towards its intended landing spot at 200 ft, at night, in poor weather, the crew was unaware of the presence of a 282-foot obstacle in their flight path.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash” (revision 1369695420, 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
On March 14, 2017, about 1719 universal coordinated time (UTC), a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, Irish registration EI-ICR, crashed offshore near Blackrock Island West of Blacksod Bay, Ireland. There were 4 occupants. The pilot was fatally injured and 3 crewmembers are presumed fatal. The flight originated from Dublin, Ireland, and was enroute to Blacksod Bay Helipad Co. Mayo, Ireland.
The accident investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the government of Ireland. This report is for information purposes only and contains only information released by or obtained from the government of Ireland. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) Lesson Lane Dublin 2 Ireland D02TR60 www.aaiu.ie +353 (0) 1 604 1293
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash
- Revision
- 1369695420 · 2026-08-16 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q29017996
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record CEN17RA131
- Event ID
- 20170316X31852
- Case number
- CEN17RA131
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash" (page 53479951, revision 1369695420); merged with NTSB case CEN17RA131 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- 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 CEN17RA131
- Operation
- government agency named in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash" and NTSB case CEN17RA131, matched by the same aircraft registration 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.