LAX90FA268 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From STORRIE, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90FA268
- 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
- N2292W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From STORRIE, CATo 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
- Turboshaft engine, free turbine governor › Contamination
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS CONDUCTING A HELICOPTER AERIAL SURVEY AND WAS CRUISING AT 400 FT AGL IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WHEN THE ENGINE, WITHOUT ANY WARNING, SUSTAINED A FLAME OUT. THE PILOT IMMEDIATELY EXECUTED AN AUTOROTATION AND WAS ABLE TO FIND A SUITABLE LANDING AREA. ON FINAL APPROACH HE OBSERVED A STEEL CABLE TRAVERSING THE LANDING SITE DIRECTLY IN THE HELICOPTER'S FLIGHT PATH. HE WAS ABLE TO FLY OVER THE CABLE BUT IN DOING SO THE MAIN ROTOR RPM DECAYED AND THE HELICOPTER SUSTAINED A HARD LANDING. THE POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION DISCLOSED THAT THE ENGINE WOULD NOT OPERATE AT GOVERNOR POWER LEVEL ANGLES OF LESS THAN 50 DEG. AFTER BENCH TESTING THE POWER TURBINE GOVERNOR IT OPERATED NORMALLY WHEN PLACED ON THE ENGINE. TEST ENGINEERS REPORTED THAT THIS CONDITIONS, IN ALL PROBABILITY, INDICATES A CONTAMINATE LODGED IN THE POWER TURBINE GOVERNOR. IT WAS DISCLODGED DURING THE BENCH TEST.
Probable cause
AN UNIDENTIFIED CONTAMINATE LODGED IN THE FUEL GOVERNOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90FA268
- Event ID
- 20001212X23729
- Case number
- LAX90FA268
- 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: 9f495dc2afb8255951212b3128c7bb3654cdee9767fa5e21aa9622e000e01e65; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:00:52.304Z.