LAX87LA261 · Bell H-13
Reid Helicopters Bell H-13 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Chino Airport (CNO) to California City Municipal Airport (L71)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA261
- 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 H-13
- Aircraft type
- Bell H-13
- 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
- N11HU
- Operator
- Reid Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CATo California City Municipal Airport (L71), California City, 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, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A PLEASURE CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE ENGINE LOST POWER AT AN ALT OF APRX 200 FT AGL. THE PLT ENTERED AN AUTOROTATIVE DESCENT ONTO SOFT TERRAIN. UPON TOUCHDOWN, THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES SEVERRED THE TAIL ROTOR FROM THE BOOM. SHORTLY AFTER THE ACCIDENT, THE PLT NOTIFIED THE OWNER THAT HE HAD RUN THE ACFT OUT OF FUEL AND WAS MAKING ARRANGEMENTS TO MOVE THE ACFT. UPON INSPECTION BY THE OWNER THE ACFT WAS FOUND EMPTY OF FUEL. THERE WERE NO MECHANICAL FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS REPORTED. THE PLT HAD MADE ARRANGEMENTS TO REMOVE THE ACFT PRIOR TO NOTIFYING THE PROPER AUTHORITIES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA261
- Event ID
- 20001213X31247
- Case number
- LAX87LA261
- 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: ddae9684ab861bb326a0a1642abcdfb2fcb551a3a2bbf2d214b6657fb29d85de; retrieved 2026-09-23T12:56:39.114Z.