FTW96LA395 · Bell 407
Bell 407 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Kerrville / Kerr County Airport at Louis Schreiner Field (ERV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA395
- 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 407
- Aircraft type
- Bell 407
- 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
- N1114S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kerrville / Kerr County Airport at Louis Schreiner Field (ERV)To 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 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not complied with
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the day prior to the accident, when the flight was 20 minutes from Kerrville after flying through a light rain, the RESTART FAULT light illuminated on the caution and warning light panel. The flight continued to Kerrville and landed without further incident. Maintenance was performed to correct the deficiencies. On the day of the accident, the helicopter's engine was started and ground run two times with all systems normal. A 10 minute test flight was performed and no discrepancies were noted. During the approach to Kerrville Airport, at 300 feet AGL, in a right turn, approximately 60 knots, the pilot noted the FADEC FAIL light and warning horn. During the autorotation, to avoid trees and houses, he extended the glide by increasing collective pitch. After clearing the obstacles, he leveled the helicopter and 'used all remaining collective for landing.' The helicopter 'landed hard and remained upright.' The pilot did not perform the emergency procedure for a FADEC FAIL warning light as prescribed by the Bell 407 Rotorcraft Flight Manual. An examination of the HMU harness revealed a manufacturing defect.
Probable cause
The loss of power due to the pilot's failure to comply with established procedures. Factors were a short in the FADEC wiring harness due to a manufacturing defect, and the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA395
- Event ID
- 20001208X06739
- Case number
- FTW96LA395
- 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: a25dfcf4870628015b4a122edb4771c7f2998ea30cb52b56a179ca0378aa3e24; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:27:23.011Z.