FTW01LA036 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From MATAGORDA 603, GM to Aransas County Airport (RKP)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01LA036
- 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 206B
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- N222LM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MATAGORDA 603, GMTo Aransas County Airport (RKP)
- 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 (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
- Turboshaft engine, gas generator turbine shaft › Failure
- Turboshaft engine, gas generator turbine shaft › Fatigue
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Rockport, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was returning to shore from an oil platform. The pilot had just made a "5 mile advisory call" announcing his intention to land at his destination when the engine chip light illuminated; this was followed by an immediate loss of engine power. The pilot initiated an autorotation, inflated the floats and made a mayday call. During the descent, he "had full [aircraft] control to include tail rotor authority." During landing, the tail rotor blades entered the water resulting in sudden stoppage of the tail rotor, which twisted the tail rotor drive shaft apart. Following the landing, the helicopter remained upright, and the pilot exited the helicopter after the main rotor blades came to a stop due to the "waves and wind." After he moved away from the helicopter, it rolled over. The pilot reported that the wind was from 045 degrees at 15 knots gusting to 25 knots. An examination of the turbine engine revealed that the N1 gas producer would not turn. Disassembly of the engine revealed that the compressor coupling adapter was fractured. Metallurgical examination indicated that the compressor coupling adapter had failed due to fatigue initiating from fretting at the outer surface where it contacted the impeller. The source of the fretting could not be determined.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power during cruise flight due to the fatigue fracture of the compressor coupling adapter. A contributing factor was the high sea condition existing for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01LA036
- Event ID
- 20001218X45438
- Case number
- FTW01LA036
- 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: 547ad92262892d2b42566c3fc403584ab83539a87473bf96aa59d99026f6e3bd; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:18:07.606Z.