LAX00LA288 · Bell 47D
Bell 47D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) to Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA288
- 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 47D
- Aircraft type
- Bell 47
- 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
- N39KH
- Operator
- Pablo M. Ejarque · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CATo Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK), Stockton Metro, CA
- 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 · 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot performed an autorotative landing to an open field following a loss of engine power while in cruise flight. The skids contacted a berm on touchdown, and the helicopter began rocking. As the helicopter pitched fore and aft, the main rotor blades and tail rotor blades contacted the ground. The single engine helicopter utilized a single-tank fuel system capable of containing 29 gallons of fuel. The pilot anticipated a 16 g.p.h. fuel-flow, and determined he had an endurance of 1 hour 48 minutes. The helicopter engine run time was 1 hour 35 minutes prior to losing power. The pilot's post accident inspection of the aircraft revealed that the fuel load had been exhausted. He indicated in the accident report, under the section titled "Recommendation (How Could This Accident Have Been Prevented)," that he could have conducted "more planning on cross-country flights."
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate planning by which he miscalculated fuel consumption which resulted in fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA288
- Event ID
- 20001212X21765
- Case number
- LAX00LA288
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-08-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b6c618667499f29d52e6fd4156831b64b4752c58ecaff8e9d40c5e70accefea3; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:37:28.629Z.