LAX95LA019 · Eurocopter AS-350D
Eurocopter AS-350D · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Kahului International Airport (OGG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA019
- 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
- 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
Eurocopter AS-350D
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS-350
- 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
- N5771L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kahului International Airport (OGG), Kahului, HITo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, service of aircraft/equipment, inadequate
- Company maintenance personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Compressor assembly, blade › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AN EUROCOPTER AS-350D COLLIDED WITH TREES AFTER A LOSS OF POWER WHILE OPERATING IN A MARINE ENVIRONMENT. THE PILOT REPORTED HE HEARD AN EXPLOSION FOLLOWED BY THE ENGINE OUT HORN. THE ENGINE TEMPERATURE (T4) GAUGE WAS NOTED AT 900 DEGREES CELSIUS AND THE ENGINE CHIP DETECTOR LIGHT ILLUMINATED. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE ENGINE HAD SUSTAINED DAMAGE TO THE AXIAL COMPRESSOR, COMPRESSOR STATOR VANES, AND THE IMPELLER. PORTIONS OF THE IMPELLER BLADES WERE EXAMINED MICROSCOPICALLY REVEALING EVIDENCE OF METAL FATIGUE, WITH PITTING EVIDENT THROUGHOUT THE BLADES. ENERGY DISPERSIVE X RAY SHOWED THE PRESENCE OF SULFUR AND CHLORINE IN CORROSION DEPOSITS IN THE PITS. THE ENGINE WAS INSPECTED TWICE IN THE MONTH PRECEDING THE ACCIDENT. THE INSPECTION CRITERIA OUTLINED IN THE ENGINE MAINTENANCE MANUAL DETAILS A VISUAL INSPECTION PROCEDURE OF THE COMPRESSOR SECTION FOR CRACKS. THE MAINTENANCE MANUAL ALSO PRESCRIBES A DAILY COMPRESSOR WATER RINSE TO REMOVE SALT DEPOSITS, FOLLOWED BY INSPECTING THE COMPRESSOR FOR CLEANLINESS.
Probable cause
a total loss of engine power by the corrosion fatigue failure of the compressor impeller due to the failure of company maintenance personnel to perform the prescribed daily compressor wash procedures and the inadequate maintenance inspections, which failed to detect the corrosion and subsequent pitting, that led to the fatigue initiation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA019
- Event ID
- 20001206X02476
- Case number
- LAX95LA019
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3a1b80d3d6c8c5de3b5c0cd8c9a31c7f78e9595d6c1861531654534001bf1e24; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:07:02.527Z.