NYC84LA204 · Hughes 500D
Hughes 500D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From BED · Bedford, PA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84LA204
- 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
Hughes 500D
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 500
- 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
- N5106Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From BED · Bedford, PATo 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bedford, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PLT, THE HELICOPTER TOOK OFF WITH UNDER 200 LBS OF FUEL INDICATING ON THE FUEL GAGE. FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTER TAKEOFF AT 125 FT AGL THE ENGINE OUT WARNING SYSTEM INDICATED AN ENGINE FAILURE. THE ACFT BEGAN TO ROTATE ABOUT ITS VETICAL AXIS AND DESCENDED. AT THIS POINT THE PLT OBSERVED THE FUEL GAGE TO BE 'ONE NEEDLE WIDTH BELOW THE 100 LB MARK.' THE PLT LOWERED THE COLLECTIVE ALMOST TO THE BOTTOM THEN PULLED IT ALL THE WAY UP JUST PRIOR TO IMPACT WHICH OCCURRED IN A DESCENT RATE OF 800 TO 1000 FPM. THE IMPACT BROKE THE RIGHT SKID AND THE HELICOPTER ROLLED OVER ON ITS RIGHT SIDE. AN INSPECTION OF THE ACFT FUEL SYSTEM FOLLOWING THE ACCIDENT REVEALED NO FUEL IN THE ANKS AND NOTHING WRONG WITH THE FUEL INDICATING SYSTEM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84LA204
- Event ID
- 20001214X40107
- Case number
- NYC84LA204
- 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: e9afd8e6ec7fc91eba567915ba0a3d463bc368ba03cf859b18dea22e931f772a; retrieved 2026-09-23T20:22:27.422Z.