LAX01LA157 · Bell 206-L3
Critical Air Medicine Bell 206-L3 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Tucson International Airport (TUS) to Cochise County Airport (P33)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA157
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 206-L3
- 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
- N215M
- Operator
- Critical Air Medicine
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZTo Cochise County Airport (P33), Willcox, AZ
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Fuel system, tank › Flow restricted
- Pilot in command › Maneuver, attempted
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The single engine helicopter impacted trees and terrain during a forced landing following a reported loss of engine power. According to the crew's statements, during the positioning flight back to their hospital base one of the flight nurses spotted a herd of antelope and pointed them out to the pilot. The pilot turned toward the herd. As he slowed down and maneuvered the helicopter to view the animals he detected the engine out audio warning and corresponding engine out warning light. The pilot noticed the rotor rpm dropping and he looked at the engine turbine outlet temperature gauge to verify that the engine had lost power. He added that he could no longer hear the engine. The pilot lowered the collective at 500 feet agl, and entered an autorotation. The pilot noticed the rotor rpm was in the low 90's at the time of autorotation entry. The pilot selected a landing area and informed the cabin crew that this was for real and to brace themselves. As the helicopter decelerated, the pilot rolled the throttle to the off position. When the pilot realized that he was going to impact a tree, he pulled up on collective to cushion the landing. The helicopter impacted the tree, then the ground, and came to rest upright in flat desert terrain covered with scrub brush. Photographs taken at the accident site revealed open areas void of trees surrounding the landing spot. The helicopter was examined and nothing was noted that would have precluded normal operation. A post-accident test run of the engine revealed no anomalies during repeated accelerations and decelerations. The engine's measured power output exceeded new engine specifications. The engine was not equipped with an auto reignition system.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the likely unporting of the fuel tank pickups as the helicopter was maneuvered to look at animals on the ground. Also causal was the pilot's misjudged touchdown point during an autorotational approach, which resulted in the in-flight impact with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA157
- Event ID
- 20010426X00823
- Case number
- LAX01LA157
- 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, coordinates. 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: 861cd64125042cf10b306f6154c631d72491001f86b73dcd628c4e10adffa08e; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:00:28.534Z.