CHI02FA001 · Enstrom F-28A
Enstrom F-28A · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Harbor Country Heliport (6MI8) to Dupont-Lapeer Airport (D95)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA001
- 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
- 1 · 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
Enstrom F-28A
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F-28
- 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
- N137E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harbor Country Heliport (6MI8), Almont, MITo Dupont-Lapeer Airport (D95), Lapeer, MI
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Autorotation, not performed
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter sustained substantial damage when it impacted trees and terrain following a reported in-flight loss of engine power during cruise. A witness, who was a pilot, stated, "Low rotor - R.P.M. Low - Power[.] Observed flying due North from P.T. Auto Sales." Another witness stated that the aircraft was heading northwest. The witness said that the helicopter was leaning to its left side, it appeared the motor stopped, and the helicopter went straight down. The Lapeer County Sheriff's report stated, "[The Arcadia Township Fire Chief] said that he was at the scene of the crash and indicated that he had not smelled any fuel and seen no signs of it leaking." The pilot held a student pilot certificate and an expired third-class medical certificate. He listed on that medical that he had 200 total hours of flight time. The helicopter came to rest on the nose of its cabin assembly. The front of the cabin assembly was crushed aft. The three rotor blades were found attached to the hub. The tail rotor assembly was found intact. Continuity was established to the flight control surfaces. Control continuity was established to the engine. The engine produced a thumb compression at all cylinders. The magnetos produced spark when the engine was rotated with the master switch in the on position. The fuel servo screen was found clean. A liquid was found exiting the unplugged servo screen when the electric boost pump was turned on. About an ounce of a blue colored fluid was recovered from the fuel strainer. Both fuel tanks were found compromised. The airframe revealed no signs of fuel staining. There was no smell of fuel at the accident site. Sections of ground around the cabin were dug up. The ground did not have any smell of fuel. No pre-impact anomalies were found. A fueling log, marked "100 LL", was found at the departure heliport. A fuel log entry dated October 3, 2001, had a "before" entry that stated, "38.6" and its "after" entry stated, "69.7".
Probable cause
The reported loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion during cruise flight, the pilot not performing an autorotation, the pilot not maintaining rotor RPM during his emergency descent, and the pilot not maintaining control of the helicopter. A factor was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA001
- Event ID
- 20011009X02053
- Case number
- CHI02FA001
- 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: b6ad4a932f7c9e2d3ba9f13dc41f51c3ef1c6ae5f7f70962a2a5518838ea7977; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:20:21.014Z.