Sikorsky S-61N EC-FJJ helicopter accident
Helicsa (INAER Group) Sikorsky S-61 · Blade failure
From La Palma Airport, Spain to Gran Canaria Airport, Spain
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA06RA053
- 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
- 6 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-61
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-61
- Category
- Helicopter · from aircraft type
- 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
- EC-FJJ
- Operator
- Helicsa (INAER Group)
- Onboard fatalities
- 6
- Route
- From La Palma Airport, SpainTo Gran Canaria Airport, Spain
- 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
- Not recorded
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
The Sikorsky S-61N EC-FJJ helicopter accident was an aviation accident that took place at 09:08 (UTC) on 8 July 2006. The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-61N Mk.II, registered EC-FJJ and with serial number 61299, had taken off from La Palma airport at 08:19 to carry out a transfer flight between the island of La Palma and the island of Gran Canaria. The helicopter was owned by the aviation company Helicsa, belonging to the INAER group. It was operating a flight for the Ministry of the Environment.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
After the accident, the Civil Aviation Accident and Incident Investigation Commission (CIAIAC) began an investigation to determine the causes that gave rise to it. In September 2009, the CIAIAC concluded the investigation with a Report in which no cause (not even a probable one) of the accident was established. Before that Report was approved by the Plenary of the CIAIAC, the families of the victims submitted to the Ministry of Public Works a parallel Report, prepared with the help of pilots, TMAs and other aviation experts, which clearly pointed out that the accident had been caused by the in-flight failure of one of the blades of the helicopter's main rotor, and which also highlighted the serious irregularities committed by the CIAIAC investigators during the time it had lasted.
The families' Report was also delivered to the members of the Plenary of the CIAIAC on the same day that they were meeting to approve the Commission's Report.
As a consequence, that Report was not approved, and the families of the victims succeeded in having the investigation of the accident reopened and in having those aspects pointed out in their Report, which the CIAIAC investigators had overlooked until then, investigated.
On 21 December 2010, after the replacement of the President and of all the members of the Plenary, the CIAIAC approved a final Report which established that the most probable cause of the accident was the in-flight failure of one of the blades of the helicopter's main rotor.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Spanish Wikipedia article “Accidente del helicóptero Sikorsky S-61N EC-FJJ” (revision 172780121, 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
Sources
Spanish Wikipedia article: Accidente del helicóptero Sikorsky S-61N EC-FJJ
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 172780121 · 2026-04-01 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q5648964
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA06RA053
- Event ID
- 20060725X01000
- Case number
- DCA06RA053
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- es Wikipedia article "Accidente del helicóptero Sikorsky S-61N EC-FJJ" (page 4682371, revision 172780121), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case DCA06RA053 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- Map position
- Wikipedia: none
- 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 DCA06RA053
- Operation
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- 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 "Sikorsky S-61N EC-FJJ helicopter accident" and NTSB case DCA06RA053, 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.