LAX97FA086 · Enstrom F28A
Enstrom F28A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Saipan International Airport (PGSN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA086
- 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
- 2 · 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 F28A
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F28
- 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
- N9087
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saipan International Airport (PGSN), KOBLERVILLETo 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
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Rotorcraft flight controls, improper use of
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
Shortly before 1510, the pilot started the helicopter's engine, then departed on a sightseeing tour flight around the island with two fare-paying passengers. The operator anticipated the flight would last between 0.5 and 0.7 hrs. For weight considerations, the fuel load had been reduced before takeoff by an estimated 10 gallons bringing the usable quantity to between 16 and 19 gallons, as estimated using a dipstick. About 1558, while cruising off shore & nearly parallel to the shoreline, witnesses observed the helicopter fly past while making sounds like its engine was sputtering, stalling, or cutting in and out. The helicopter's course remained unchanged, & seconds later, other witnesses heard a loud bang sound. The helicopter then entered a rapid descent, & impacted in about 2.5-foot-deep ocean water in front of a hotel where people were swimming. An exam of the wreckage revealed a main rotor blade had impacted & severed the tail rotor drive shaft. No evidence was found indicating the pilot had practiced autorotations in the Enstrom helicopter during the 4.5 months since becoming rotorcraft rated. During the structural airframe and engine examinations, no evidence was found of precipitating mechanical malfunctions. Calculations based on maximum anticipated fuel consumption rates, and approximations for the quantity of fuel on board, revealed fuel exhaustion could occur within 0.1 hour of the flight's duration.
Probable cause
loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion, resulting from improper planning/decision; and the pilot's abrupt handling of the flight controls, while maneuvering to avoid swimmers, which resulted in main rotor blade contact with the tail boom. A related factor was: the presence of swimmers in the emergency landing area, which likely motivated the pilot to alter his approach for a forced/autorotative landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA086
- Event ID
- 20001208X07309
- Case number
- LAX97FA086
- 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: bd8b060258265e7a624cdd179b2ec8869bbd77f2100b9db821128700c29d7715; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:03:52.044Z.