Papillon Airways Aerospatiale AS350B accident
Aerospatiale AS350B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Kahului International Airport (OGG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA339
- 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
Aerospatiale AS350B
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS350
- 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
- N766MP
- Operator
- Papillon Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kahului International Airport (OGG), Kahului, HITo 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)
- 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 › Fuel supply, misread
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not identified
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE SIGHTSEEING HELICOPTER LANDED HARD DURING AN AUTOROTATION TO SLOPING TERRAIN AFTER EXPERIENCING A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT FOUND 2 GALLONS OF FUEL REMAINING IN THE TANKS. AFTERWARDS, FUEL WAS ADDED AND THE ENGINE STARTED NORMALLY WITH NO MECHANICAL FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS NOTED. THE FUEL QUANTITY INDICATION SYSTEM REVEALED A MALFUNCTION OF THE LOW FUEL INDICATOR LIGHT. THE AIRCRAFT HAD BEEN AIRBORNE FOR ABOUT 45 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE CRASH.
Probable cause
A NON-MECHANICAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION AND SUBSEQUENT HARD LANDING BY THE PILOT. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS A MALFUNCTIONING FUEL LOW LEVEL INDICATION SYSTEM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA339
- Event ID
- 20001212X17622
- Case number
- LAX91LA339
- 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 1991-07-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ef0992454829dede5e04fcd93eae3049dfbb569835daa0c2deed86987fae5976; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:53:30.431Z.