SEA98LA065 · Kaman K-1200
Kaman K-1200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From STARKEY, OR to La Grande, OR
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA065
- 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
Kaman K-1200
- Aircraft type
- Kaman K-1200
- 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
- N224GM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From STARKEY, ORTo La Grande, OR
- 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 · climb to 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)
- 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 › Engine shutdown, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after takeoff, when he attempted to turn the particle separator off about 200 feet above ground level, he immediately got a low fuel pressure indication and the engine then lost power. The helicopter touched down hard and rolled on its side in the ensuing forced landing. The pilot stated he believed he had inadvertently turned the fuel shutoff switch to OFF, rather than the particle separator switch. These two on-off switches are separated by about 2 inches on the instrument panel, and both actuate on and off in a common direction and along a common axis; the switches differ by shape only. In a post-accident examination, investigators found the FUEL/OIL switch OFF and the adjacent PART SEP switch ON. No evidence of pre-existing mechanical problems with the engine was reported. The K-1200 received normal-category FAA type certification in August 1994. FAA airworthiness standards for type certification of normal-category rotorcraft (contained in 14 CFR 27) require cockpit controls to be 'located to...prevent confusion and inadvertent operation', as well as 'means to guard against inadvertent operation of each shutoff.'
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent shutdown of the engine with the FUEL/OIL shutoff switch. Contributing to the accident were: the manufacturer's inadequate location and design of the FUEL/OIL shutoff switch; the FAA's inadequate determination of the type design's compliance with applicable airworthiness standards; and the helicopter's low altitude at the time of the power loss.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA065
- Event ID
- 20001211X09961
- Case number
- SEA98LA065
- 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: b3f6c8278bc441a0f304540ce8767934faf7fe2850fff7df591ccc86c3e41b04; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:52:03.548Z.