IAD01LA091 · Delbridge Rotorway EXEC 162F
Delbridge Rotorway EXEC 162F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Suffolk, VA (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01LA091
- 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
Delbridge Rotorway EXEC 162F
- Aircraft type
- Delbridge ROTORWAY EXEC 162F
- 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
- N113RD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Suffolk, VA (no airport)To 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 · 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 (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; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departing, the pilot serviced the helicopter with fuel for a total of 17 gallons and performed a preflight inspection. He then started the helicopter, checked the systems, and proceeded on several flights with different passengers. After the sixth take-off, the pilot flew to his home, hovered for a few minutes, then proceeded to fly along the bank of the James River. As he approached 300-foot tall power lines, the pilot said the helicopter yawed to the left, which he felt was an indication of an engine failure. The pilot autorotated to the ground and collided with trees. A representative of RotorWay International downloaded and evaluated data from the engine control units under the supervision of a Safety Board investigator. Examination of the data revealed that the engine had been operating for a total of 1-hour and 54-minutes. The data also revealed that there were no errors or faults listed for the flight, and the monitored engine parameters appeared to be normal. According to the pilot, the helicopter would consume about 7.5 gallons per hour. Examination of the helicopter and engine revealed that there were no mechanical deficiencies.
Probable cause
pilot's inadequate fuel consumption calculations, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01LA091
- Event ID
- 20010831X01847
- Case number
- IAD01LA091
- 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: 15defe5ce776f166562908a94ac68221f8b8e4060811b945b22af6974fae8afe; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:56:39.300Z.