ATL01LA003 · University of Alabama MINI-500
University of Alabama MINI-500 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Tuscaloosa National Airport (TCL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL01LA003
- 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
- 1 · 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
University of Alabama MINI-500
- Aircraft type
- University Of Alabama MINI-500
- 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
- N6165T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tuscaloosa National Airport (TCL)To 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 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Horizontal stabilizer
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, design change, not approved
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
- Wing, winglet
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Tuscaloosa, AL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the airport control tower operator, the helicopter had completed three to four circuits in closed traffic to taxiway golf. While on the downwind leg, the controller believed that the helicopter had a sudden loss of engine power and began to descend. No communications were received by the tower and the helicopters rotor rpm decreased and appeared to stop before impact. According to the aircraft logbook, on September 28, 2000, the pilot had modified the helicopters horizontal stabilizer by cutting off part of the stabilizer, and removing the winglets. This modification was not approved as required by the experimental aircraft operating limitations. Additionally, the engine operations manual under section 9 stated in part that 'this engine, by its design, is subject to sudden stoppage'.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, and the pilot's unapproved airframe modification that resulted in the loss of flight control during the emergency descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL01LA003
- Event ID
- 20001212X22105
- Case number
- ATL01LA003
- 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. 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: 1044a34d7314dd04de1ff3af0a39e1d424f4a940af0a7577640c965ab53fa49e; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:50:03.544Z.