New York Airways Flight 972 (1979)
Sikorsky S61-L · Loss of control following separation of the tail rotor
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
Event
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 15
- 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
- 13
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Sikorsky S61-L
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S61
- 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
- N618PA
- Operator
- New York Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)To LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
- 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
- Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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 · climb to 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
- Tail rotor failure
- 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
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Fatigue fracture
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Vibration, excessive
- Rotorcraft › Tail rotor blades
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
New York Airways Flight 972 (1979) (flight number: NY972, callsign NEW YORK 972) was a regional domestic scheduled flight operated by New York Airways from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. On 18 April 1979, a Sikorsky S-61L-II helicopter crashed on this flight when, shortly after takeoff, a tail rotor blade and a little later the entire tail rotor separated. Three people were killed in the accident.
Sequence of the accident
Shortly after takeoff from Newark Airport, when the helicopter was at an altitude of 1,200 feet (about 365 metres), it lost a blade of the tail rotor. Because of the imbalance, the pilots initiated an emergency descent and decided to return to Newark. On reaching an altitude of 150 feet (about 45 metres), the tail rotor separated completely from the fuselage as a result of the vibrations caused by the imbalance. The helicopter thereupon pitched over nose-first and went into a steep dive. It crashed onto runway 22 of Newark Airport. On impact, three passengers were killed, and ten other passengers and three crew members were seriously injured. A 90 cm long part of the main rotor was found outside the airport, at the intersection of Aruba Street/North Fleet Street in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board took over the investigation into the cause of the accident. The final report was published on 27 September 1979. In it, the investigators concluded that the tail rotor propeller blade in question had failed after takeoff due to material fatigue.
The investigators also criticised that the severity of the passengers' injuries was influenced by the failure on impact of the seat structures certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, especially since these were only designed to withstand low loads and therefore gave way. It was also criticised that the crew had not ensured that the passengers adopted safe positions before the impact in order to minimise injuries.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “New-York-Airways-Flug 972 (1979)” (revision 263607664, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB remarks
T/R BLADE SEPD,THEN T/R GEARBOX,ROTOR ASSY SEP.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
German Wikipedia article: New-York-Airways-Flug 972 (1979)
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 263607664 · 2026-01-24 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q110985743
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19790418P075006
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "New-York-Airways-Flug 972 (1979)" (page 12046034, revision 263607664), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19790418P075006 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19790418P075006: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19790418P075006
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19790418P075006: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19790418P075006: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19790418P075006: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19790418P075006: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "New York Airways Flight 972 (1979)" and NTSB case NTSB19790418P075006, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.