FTW86LA119 · Aerospatiale AS35OD
Aerospatiale AS35OD · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Houma Terrebonne Airport (HUM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW86LA119
- 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
Aerospatiale AS35OD
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS35
- 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
- N229EH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houma Terrebonne Airport (HUM), Houma, LATo 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Accessory drive assembly, drive shaft › Disintegrated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT EXPERIENCED A SUDDEN YAW IN THE HELICOPTER AT CRUISE FLIGHT. THE NG STARTED WINDING DOWN CONFIRMING AN ENGINE FAILURE. THE PILOT HAD TO EXTEND AN AUTOROTATION OVER A TREE LINE, WHICH CAUSED THE RPM TO DECREASE, AND MADE A HARD LANDING IN AN ADJACENT FIELD. DAMAGE TO THE HELICOPTER INCLUDED THE TAIL SECTION, LANDING GEAR AND MAIN ROTOR. INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT BOTH THE GEAR SPUR COMPRESOR SHAFT AND THE GEAR SPUR ACCESSORY DRIVE WERE MISSING TEETH. THE INSPECTION ALSO REVEALED THAT METAL FRAGMENTS FROM THE GEARS WERE DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT THE ENGINE'S LUBRICATION SYSTEM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW86LA119
- Event ID
- 20001213X33885
- Case number
- FTW86LA119
- 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: 408c499054d134e9911597c2408333897fa931383d392f7c7c5846588d01ddc2; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:59:09.113Z.