Kenai Air of Hawaii Bell 206B accident
Bell 206B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA127
- 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
Bell 206B
- 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
- N2072C
- Operator
- Kenai Air of Hawaii
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous rotorcraft, emergency floatation gear › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
IN WRITTEN AND ORAL STATEMENTS PROVIDED BY THE PILOT AND PASSENGER, THE AIRCRAFT'S ENGINE WAS STARTED ABOUT 1420 HOURS HST. THE HELICOPTER DEPARTED HONOLULU, HAWAII, FOR A RESEARCH VESSEL LOCATED ABOUT 130 NAUTICAL MILES SOUTH. THE PILOT WAS NOT ABLE TO LOCATE THE SHIP AND DECIDED TO RETURN TO HONOLULU. THE PILOT ESTABLISHED RADIO CONTACT WITH HONOLULU TRACON AND REPORTED MINIMUM FUEL STATUS. ABOUT 15 NAUTICAL MILES SOUTH OF HONOLULU, THE ENGINE LOST TOTAL POWER DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION. THE PILOT SUCCESSFULLY AUTOROTATED TO THE WATER, BUT AFTER TOUCHING DOWN THE RIGHT FORWARD EMERGENCY FLOTATION GEAR DEFLATED, CAUSING THE AIRCRAFT TO SINK.
Probable cause
INACCURATE FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATION BY THE PILOT. A FACTOR WAS THE PARTIAL DEFLATION OF THE EMERGENCY FLOTATION EQUIPMENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA127
- Event ID
- 20001212X16628
- Case number
- LAX91LA127
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-03-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2695d90c7a3a87fd3ba1c922a29dbaa14dd004187814969d3bddc4fa49718033; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:56:21.245Z.