Talaheim Lodge & Air Service Enstrom F-28F accident
Enstrom F-28F · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From Skwentna Airport (SKW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA109
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 F-28F
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F-28
- 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
- N8622U
- Operator
- Talaheim Lodge & Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skwentna Airport (SKW), AKTo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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
- Induction air control, intake manifold › Fractured
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial helicopter pilot was conducting a salmon survey for the State of Alaska, Department of Fish & Game. This operation required him to hover the helicopter over the stream while the passenger, a wildlife biologist employed by the State of Alaska, noted the number of fish. The pilot stated that while in a hover above the stream, he felt a slight vibration followed by a partial loss of engine power. He said that while hover taxiing the helicopter to a suitable landing area, the engine continued to lose power, and he was forced to make a downwind autorotation. He said that as the helicopter touched down, the main rotor blades flexed downward, and struck the tail boom. The helicopter's tail boom, and tail rotor gearbox sustained substantial damage. The operator reported that during a postaccident inspection of the engine, a fractured intake manifold flange was discovered on the number three cylinder assembly.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to a fractured number three cylinder intake manifold flange, and the pilot's inability to maintain the proper rate of descent during the autorotation flare. A contributing factor associated with the accident was the downwind (tailwind) landing condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA109
- Event ID
- 20001211X10460
- Case number
- ANC98LA109
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 99c1404fa4a40d65ab0a12a3de616dbd42b7e753496ed94e7e617f6e30023668; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:06:38.317Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N8622U; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.