CHI98TA354 · Bell 206B-3
Bell 206B-3 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From MN to N/A
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98TA354
- 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 206B-3
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- N52BH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MNTo N/A
- 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
- Turboshaft engine, free turbine governor › Failure, partial
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the fire fighting helicopter had just filled the slung water bucket and started to climb. According to the pilot, the helicopter's engine began losing power and rotor RPM as it entered translational lift. The pilot said he jettisoned the water and '...nursed...' the helicopter to the shoreline. During the forced landing the tail rotor struck a steel fence post. The helicopter began to spin and the pilot autorotated to a landing. The engine was test run. The engine's governor differential between pneumatic and governor produced air was 5.7-percent below the low limit. Examination of the governor revealed worn spring ends and spring mounts in the cam follower's lever arm and the spring retainer assembly.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power due to failure of the engine governor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98TA354
- Event ID
- 20001211X11036
- Case number
- CHI98TA354
- 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, destination. 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: 9bca044fab160379d761ff2b10e27665855706e61d2ccd4f0043b589d31e3b7c; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:49:24.872Z.