2018 Puebla helicopter crash
Servicios Aéreos del Altiplano AgustaWestland AW109S Grand · Mechanical failure due to maintenance error
From Puebla to Mexico City
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19RA077
- 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
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 5
- 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
- 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 AW109S Grand
- Aircraft type
- Agustawestland AW109
- 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
- XA-BON
- Operator
- Servicios Aéreos del Altiplano
- Onboard fatalities
- 5
- Route
- From PueblaTo Mexico City
- 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., Non-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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
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
On December 24, 2018, a helicopter carrying Martha Érika Alonso Hidalgo, the newly elected governor of the Mexican state of Puebla, and her husband, senator and former governor Rafael Moreno Valle Rosas, crashed on a hill in Coronango near the city of Puebla. All five people on board the helicopter were killed in the crash: Alonso, Moreno, the two pilots, Captain Roberto Coppe Obregón and Captain Marco Antonio Tavera Romero, and an assistant to the senator. Alonso was 10 days into her term as governor at that time of the crash. The accident investigation found a preexisting problem with a stability system on the helicopter.
Crash
The helicopter was an AgustaWestland AW109S Grand manufactured in 2011 and owned by Servicios Aéreos del Altiplano, S.A. de C.V. (SAASA), an air taxi company headquartered at Puebla International Airport. Its destination was the Helipuerto Radio Capital in Mexico City. It crashed on 24 December at 14:50 local time (20:50 GMT), just ten minutes after takeoff from a heliport in Puebla. The crash site is in the municipality of Santa María Coronango, approximately 3.5 mi north of Puebla International Airport.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation of the crash was conducted by Mexican authorities from the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil and the office of the federal attorney general. They were assisted by representatives from Agusta and Pratt and Whitney, which manufactured the helicopter's engines.
Mexico had sought the aid of the United States National Transportation Safety Board; while the NTSB initially stated it could not support the investigation due to the ongoing government shutdown, an exception was made to allow the NTSB to support the investigation alongside investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
The final report concluded on March 27, 2020, that the helicopter “should not have flown” because of a preexisting problem with a stability system on the helicopter that both the operator and the maintenance crew knew about. One piece was found to have two loose screws inside. Investigators found no objects that had collided with the aircraft and no pieces of the aircraft that had fallen off it prior to the crash. The government suspended the helicopter company and the company responsible for maintenance; the case has been turned over to prosecutors.
On 25 December 2020, Mexican authorities announced they had detained four people in connection with the helicopter crash. The four worked at Rotor Flight Services - a company that had a role in the functioning of the helicopter.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2018 Puebla helicopter crash” (revision 1348475229, 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
The government of Mexico has notified the NTSB of an accident involving a AGUSTA A109S helicopter that occurred on December 24, 2018. The NTSB has appointed a U.S. Accredited Representative to assist the government of Mexico's investigation under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13.
This investigation is under the jurisdiction of the government of Mexico. Any further information regarding the investigation can be obtained from:
Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) Secretariat of Communications and Transportation Blvd. Adolfo López Mateos 1990, piso 4 Col. Los Alpes Tlacopac, Del. Álvaro Obregón Codigo Postal 01010 México, D.F. Mexico
Tel.: (52) 55 5723-9400, E-mail: cidaiac@sct.gob.mx
This report is for informational purposes only. All investigative information will be released by the DGAC.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2018 Puebla helicopter crash
- Article
- 2018 Puebla helicopter crash
- Revision
- 1348475229 · 2026-04-12 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q60139328
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ERA19RA077
- Event ID
- 20181226X54250
- Case number
- ERA19RA077
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2018 Puebla helicopter crash" (page 59479578, revision 1348475229); merged with NTSB case ERA19RA077 (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 ERA19RA077
- Operation
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): The helicopter belonged to an air taxi company and carried the governor and her party: an air taxi flight. The article: "owned by Servicios Aéreos del Altiplano, S.A. de C.V. (SAASA), an air taxi company headquartered at Puebla International Airport"
- 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 "2018 Puebla helicopter crash" and NTSB case ERA19RA077, 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.