MIA96LA088 · Bell 206L4
Bell 206L4 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Marianna Municipal Airport (MAI) to Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96LA088
- 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
Bell 206L4
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- N6248X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marianna Municipal Airport (MAI), Marianna, FLTo Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL), Lakeland, FL
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command › Collective, improper
- Pilot in command › Cyclic, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that during cruise flight about 400 feet mean sea level he heard the engine decelerate then heard the engine-out audio. He maneuvered the helicopter for an autorotative landing in a clearing, but after observing uneven terrain he elected to zero his forward airspeed. After a hard landing the helicopter rocked forward causing the main rotor blades to contact the tailboom. Fuel quantity was sufficient to sustain engine operation and visually no contaminants were noted. The helicopter was recovered and the engine was started several times using the fuel supply in the fuel tank with no discrepancies noted. The engine was removed from the helicopter and tested at the manufacturers facility with no discrepancies noted. The power turbine governor (PTG) and the main fuel control and engine driven fuel pump were removed for bench testing. The only discrepancy noted was a failed roll pin for the throttle level stop in the PTG. The PTG manufacturer states that the failed roll pin would not effect operation of the unit.
Probable cause
Improper cyclic and collective input by the pilot-in-command resulting in the hard landing during the autorotative landing. Contributing to the accident was the total loss of engine power due to undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96LA088
- Event ID
- 20001208X05450
- Case number
- MIA96LA088
- 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: 5073122f53704ee07f818038ab6151511a830f3d9440a170ead7b8bbbf3cf243; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:47:00.402Z.