BFO85FA049 · Bell 222U
Aircraft Management Service Bell 222U · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Richmond International Airport (RIC) to QUANTICO, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO85FA049
- 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 222U
- Aircraft type
- Bell 222
- 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
- N3180K
- Operator
- Aircraft Management Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richmond International Airport (RIC), Richmond, VATo QUANTICO, VA
- 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
- Partial 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
- Engine assembly, bearing › Failure, total
- Turboshaft engine › Foreign object damage
- Turboshaft engine, free(power) turbine › Burst
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HELO WAS IN LEVEL CRUISE FLT AT 1500 FT AND 115 KTS WHEN THE NO. 2 ENG CHIP LIGHT ILLUMINATED, ACCOMPANIED BY LOWERING OIL PRESSURE. THE PLT REDUCED PWR AND STARTED A RT TURN TO RETURN TO BASE WHEN HALF WAY THRU THE TURN A LOUD BANG OCCURRED FOLLOWED BY COMPLETE POWER LOSS OF BOTH ENGINES AND ENG CMPT FIRE. A SUCCESSFUL AUTOROTATION ENSUED, AND THE FIRE WAS EXTINGUISHED WITH THE ACFT SYSTEM AFTER LNDG. LATER EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE NO. 3 BEARING HAD FAILED. ULTIMATELY RELEASING THE PWR TURBINE ASSY FROM THE ENG. THE TURBINE DISC WELDED TO THE TAILPIPE CENTER BODY, FAILING THE DISC. FRAGMENTS STRUCK THE NO. 1 ENGINE WHICH RESULTED IN ITS UNCOMMANDED SHUT DOWN. BOTH ENGINES HAD A LENGTHY HISTORY OF CHIP ALARMS. LYCOMING HAD RECENTLY APPROVED A 100 HR. EXTENSION TO THE RECOMMENDED HOT SECTION INTERVAL AFTER A REVIEW OF MAINT. RECORDS. THREE SCAVENGE CHIP ALARMS OCCURRED DRG THE 50 HRS PRIOR TO THE FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO85FA049
- Event ID
- 20001214X36378
- Case number
- BFO85FA049
- 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: d4f449ae47fd350981475a5879f9f71493de19ab6b0d5991c138bfce8ea7e0a2; retrieved 2026-09-23T17:29:03.514Z.