LAX87LA294 · Bell 47D-1
Bell 47D-1 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Meadows Field (BFL) to Taft Kern County Airport (L17)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA294
- 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 47D-1
- 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
- N917B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, CATo Taft Kern County Airport (L17), Taft, 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 › Flight controls, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THE ENG LOST POWER AT ABOUT 300' AGL AFTER THE HELICOPTER HAD FLOWN APRX 2.7 HRS WITHOUT REFUELING. HE INITIATED AN AUTOROTATIVE LANDING; HOWEVER, BEFORE TOUCHDOWN, THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES CONTACTED & SEVERED THE TAIL BOOM. AN EXAM REVEALED THE FUEL TANK WAS EMPTY. NO SIGNS OF FUEL LEAKAGE WERE FOUND. THE HELICOPTER HAD BEEN EQUIPPED WITH A 210 HP FRANKLIN ENG IAW A SUPPLEMENTAL TYPE CERTIFICATE. THERE WAS NO FACTORY DATA ON FUEL CONSUMPTION RATES FOR THIS CONFIGURATION. OTHER OPERATORS, WHO OPERATED THIS MAKE & MODEL OF HELICOPTER, ESTIMATED THE FUEL CONSUMPTION WAS APRX 12 GAL/HR. AFTER THE ACDNT, THE PLT RPRTD HE MEASURED THE FUEL CAPACITY OF THE HELICOPTER FUEL CELL. HE STATED THE CELL WOULD HOLD ONLY 26.5 GAL OF FUEL, INSTEAD OF '29' AS INDCD BY A STICK-ON MARKER THAT HAD BEEN INSTALLED ON A PREVIOUSLY PAINTED PLACARD.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA294
- Event ID
- 20001213X31844
- Case number
- LAX87LA294
- 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: 34bd78097850662048cb0c842511c37059d2f8a234f18b9804cedc1f391e534f; retrieved 2026-09-23T12:31:09.183Z.