About 1823 e.s.t., on April 18, 1979, New York Airways, Inc., Flight 972 crashed on Newark International Airport while attempting an emergency landind. The flight had just taken off from the airport and was at an altitude of 1,200 ft about 1 mile to the east when one of five blades broke and separated from the tail rortor. As a result, severe vibrations in the tail rotor assembly caused the tail rotor gearbox and rotor assembly to separate from the aircraft when it had descended to about 150 ft above the ground. Without a tail roto to maintain its stability, the helicopter entered a rapid nosedown, right turn to the ground. Of the 18 persons on board, 3 passengers were killed; 10 passengers and 3 crewmembers were injured seriously. Metallurgical examination revealed that the tail rotor blade failed after a fatigue crack propagated across 90 percent of blade's leading edge spar and about 2 in. of the blade skin, which weakened the blade structure. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the separation of the tail rotor assembly and gearbox from the aircraft at an altitude which make further controlled flight impossible. The roto assembly and gearbox separated because of severe vibrations in the roto assembly which were induced by the loss of a tail rotor blade due to fatigue failure.


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    Title :

    Aircraft Accident Report - New York Airways, Inc., Sikorsky S61-L, N618PA, Newark, New Jersey, April 18, 1979


    Publication date :

    1979


    Size :

    41 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English