NYC88LA170 · Bell 47J2
Plum Island Flying Service Bell 47J2 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Newburyport, MA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC88LA170
- 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 47J2
- 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
- N51711
- Operator
- Plum Island Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newburyport, MATo 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, misjudged
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Newburyport, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER DEPARTED RUNWAY 10 AT PLUM ISLAND AIRPORT, TURNED LEFT OVER THE PLUM ISLAND RIVER AND SHORTLY THEREAFTER THE ENGINE QUIT. THE PILOT STATED THAT NO WARNING WAS NOTED AND A CHECK OF THE INSTRUMENTS INDICATED NO PROBLEMS. HE FURTHER STATED THAT THE ENGINE MADE NO UNUSUAL NOISES. THE HELICOPTER WAS AUTOROTATED INTO WATER. THE OCCUPANTS WERE RESCUED BY A PRIVATE CITIZEN. EXAMINATION OF THE HELICOPTER AFTER THE ACCIDENT REVEALED NOTHING THAT WOULD HAVE CAUSED THE ENGINE TO FAIL. WITNESSES NOTED NO GASOLINE IN OR ON THE WATER. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT LATER SHOWED ABOUT 1 GAL OF FUEL IN THE RT TANK AND AN UNDETERMINED AMOUNT OF FUEL AND SALT WATER IN THE LEFT TANK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC88LA170
- Event ID
- 20001213X26068
- Case number
- NYC88LA170
- 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: 724ec0bf54f8d3308d54950d348634a04def6d101a94b246b99d43938a210fe5; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:08:43.503Z.