FTW02LA006 · Aerospatiale AS355F1
Aerospatiale AS355F1 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Valley Mills Municipal Airport (9F1) to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Temple Heliport (59XS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA006
- 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
Aerospatiale AS355F1
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS355
- 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
- N911BB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Valley Mills Municipal Airport (9F1), Valley Mills, TXTo Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Temple Heliport (59XS), Temple, TX
- 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
- 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 › Impairment(drugs)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route on a positioning flight in dark night visual meteorological conditions, the Emergency Medical Service twin-engine helicopter was diverted to pick up a patient who was involved in an automobile accident. Upon arriving in the vicinity of the accident, the pilot had trouble locating the accident site. After circling the area several times, the pilot was informed that the patient was transported by ground vehicle. The flight departed the area for the initial intended destination. The pilot filed a company flight plan with an estimated time of arrival of 30 minutes and 40 minutes of fuel on board. About 10 minutes from destination, both of the helicopter's engines lost power, and the pilot initiated an autorotation. The pilot spotted what he believed to be a tree or bush and "flared a little high to miss the obstacle which caused a decrease in rotor rpm." During the landing, the helicopter touched down "hard," slid approximately 30-40 feet, before coming to rest on its left side following the separation of both landing skid tubes. Examination of the helicopter revealed that the fuel system was not compromised. During the examination of the fuel system, a total of 2 ounces of fuel was drained from both fuel filters and the fuel lines, which lead to the fuel nozzles. A total of 2 quarts of fuel was drained from both fuel tanks. Toxicology testing of the pilot was positive for methamphetamine (>20000 ng/ml) and amphetamine (2642 ng/ml). The operator reported that "the pilot admitted to taking medicine prescribed for his wife, and was taking this medicine for 3 days prior to the accident."
Probable cause
The pilots impairment due to drugs. Contributing factors were the dark night light conditions, the pilot's failure to refuel, resulting in the total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion, and the pilot's misjudged landing flare.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA006
- Event ID
- 20011011X02076
- Case number
- FTW02LA006
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2001-10-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d59b28cfc2281a1461f765275eb20c29aeca9a35bec62cec4f498c10f232e92b; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:50:11.927Z.