ATL85FA234 · Aerospatiale AS-355F
Aerospatiale AS-355F · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL85FA234
- 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
Aerospatiale AS-355F
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-355
- 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
- N299FE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Chamblee, GATo 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 · climb to 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
- Fluid, oil › Leak
- Lubricating system, oil line › Disconnected
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
REPORTEDLY, THE PLT & PASSENGERS HAD GONE TO A LOCAL ESTABLISHMENT, WHERE THE ENTIRE PARTY HAD CONSUMED AN UNSPECIFIED AMOUNT OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. ONE PASSENGER REPORTED THAT AFTER ARRIVING AT THE ARPT, THE PLT MADE A WALK-AROUND INSPECTION OF THE HELICOPTER, & BEFORE TAKING OFF, HE PERFORMED AN ENG RUN-UP. SHORTLY AFTER THE ACFT HAD DEPARTED, THE LEFT CHIP DETECTOR LIGHT ILLUMINATED & THE PLT PROCEEDED TO RETURN TO THE ARPT. ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, THE RIGHT CHIP DETECTOR LIGHT ALSO ILLUMINATED, THEN BOTH ENGS LOST POWER. THE PLT ENTERED AN AUTOROTATION, BUT WHILE AVOIDING POWER LINES, AVAILABLE LIFT WAS EXPENDED & THE HELICOPTER LANDED HARD. THE OCCUPANTS RECEIVED SERIOUS BACK INJURIES DURING THE LANDING. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE HELICOPTER HAD BEEN PARKED OUTSIDE THE HANGER FOR CONTINUING REPAIRS & THE OIL SUPPLY LINES TO THE SENSORS HAD BEEN DISCONNECTED. SUBSEQUENTLY, OIL WAS LOST THRU THE DISCONNECTED LINES & BOTH ENGS HAD FAILED. A CHECK OF THE PLT'S BLOOD SHOWED AN ALCOHOL LVL OF 0.04%
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL85FA234
- Event ID
- 20001214X37347
- Case number
- ATL85FA234
- 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: a576fdf5775c3816a90fa362d8d1673076e14b79e01de98cd28d6b62868d5f23; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:12:07.335Z.