FTW98TA152 · Bell OH-58C
Bell OH-58C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From No airport to Rancho Magdalena Airport (NM01)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98TA152
- 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 OH-58C
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- 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
- N505JA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo Rancho Magdalena Airport (NM01), Dulce, NM
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Bleed air system, lines › Disconnected
- Fuel system, fuel control › Failure, partial
- Terrain condition › None suitable
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot performed a preflight inspection of the helicopter for a flight from a 9,060 foot elevation. On departure, the pilot remembered the helicopter yawing nose left, and the passenger stated that the engine became quiet and the helicopter vibration seemed to stop. The pilot autorotated to the steep sloping vegetated terrain. Postimpact inspection of the engine fuel controller revealed that the PC line had disconnected from the fuel controller. The helicopter received its last annual inspection on September 18, 1997, 93 flight hours prior to the accident. The pilot reported that he had observed a Jicarilla tribal member changing navigation light bulbs on the helicopter; the same individual expressed further interest in performing maintenance on the helicopter. The maintenance organization that performed the last annual inspection did not use torque paint on the PC line B-nut, which is required by the engine manufacturer but not mandated by FARs. The pilot reported that 'because of the location of the PC line connection to the fuel controller, it would be difficult, during a normal preflight inspection, to determine if the PC line B-nut was properly torqued or if it was loose.'
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to a disconnected bleed air line to the fuel controller and the unsuitable terrain for a forced landing. Factors were the loose B-nut, the inadequate maintenance by unknown personnel, insufficient standards/requirements for the use of torque paint, and the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98TA152
- Event ID
- 20001211X09686
- Case number
- FTW98TA152
- 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: 97704e4297a8969bc5347330616ccd8857add4ffbb137df840ae50f4493911f7; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:36:29.494Z.