LAX91LA058 · McDonnell Douglas 369D
Pacific Helicopters McDonnell Douglas 369D · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Hana Airport (HNM) to 0GG · Kahului, HI
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA058
- 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
McDonnell Douglas 369D
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 369
- 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
- N58240
- Operator
- Pacific Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hana Airport (HNM), Hana, HITo 0GG · Kahului, HI
- 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 · climb to 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
- Partial 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Fuel system, not maintained
- Fuel system, line fitting › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Autorotation, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF A HELICOPTER WAS IN CRUISE CLIMB AT 2600 FEET 300/400 FEET ABOVE A WATERFALL IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WHEN THE ENGINE OUT AND LOW RPM WARNING HORN AND LIGHT CAME ON. THE PILOT DECIDED TO MAKE A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING ON A FLOWER FARM DOWNHILL. DURING THE DESCENT HE MADE A SERIES OF POWER CHANGES WHICH REVEALED A DETERIORATION IN AVAILABLE POWER. THE HELICOPTER LANDED HARD ON THE REAR PORTION OF THE SKIDS. THE MAIN ROTORS SEVERED THE TAIL BOOM AND ROTOR SYSTEM.
Probable cause
FUEL STARVATION CAUSED BY A LOOSE FUEL LINE 'B' NUT, DUE TO IMPROPER MAINTENANCE; AND THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO CORRECTLY JUDGE THE LANDING FLARE DURING THE AUTOROTATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA058
- Event ID
- 20001212X24775
- Case number
- LAX91LA058
- 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: 4a479f1569230514fe99c57e1571cbff9a1413ba473e70af874146c1e80f758b; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:41:04.090Z.