SEA99LA048 · Enstrom F-28C
Enstrom F-28C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99LA048
- 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
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Enstrom F-28C
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F-28
- 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
- N51770
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Part 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel system › Contamination, water
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During takeoff from the refueling pad, the helicopter's engine lost power and the pilot attempted an autorotation. Because the aircraft did not yet have sufficient airspeed or altitude to complete a successful autorotation, it landed hard and the main rotor blades flexed downward and impacted the tail boom. It was later determined that water contamination had accidentally been transferred from a portable refueling barrel to the aircraft's fuel system during hot refueling (with engine still running). It could not be determined how water was introduced into the refueling barrel.
Probable cause
A loss of power due to water contamination of the fuel. Factors include the inability of the helicopter to perform a successful autorotation immediately after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99LA048
- Event ID
- 20001205X00562
- Case number
- SEA99LA048
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-04-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 757a05c1b10d3691940e22f4dff751246cfe1ed0ba2f801a659094d31ce312fc; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:31:22.600Z.