ATL02FA107 · Bell 47G-4A
Bell 47G-4A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Isabella, PR to Salines, PR
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02FA107
- 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
Bell 47G-4A
- Aircraft type
- Bell 47
- 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
- N6SR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Isabella, PRTo Salines, PR
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not used
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While enroute to his intended destination, the pilot noticed a reduction in engine power and engine oil pressure and elected to make a precautionary landing to investigate. The pilot selected a parking lot with an approximate 25-degree upslope for the landing area. Approximately five seconds after the initial touchdown in the parking lot, the helicopter started to slide rearward and veered to the right colliding with a parked vehicle. The helicopter came to rest on its side. The helicopter and two parked vehicles burst into flames. The examination of the engine assembly and airframe remains revealed no evidence of pre-impact component failure or system malfunction. Weather conditions were favorable for the formation of carburetor ice. The pilot did not report using carburetor heat at any point during the flight. Review of information on file with the Federal Aviation Administration, revealed the pilot was issued a private pilot certificate with ratings for airplane single engine land and airplane multi-engine land. The pilot's logbook showed that he had accumulated 2,289 hours total flight time with 295 hours of flight time in the accident aircraft make and model. The pilot did not hold a helicopter pilot's rating.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat that resulted in a partial loss of engine power and the subsequent collision with an object during the forced landing. A factor was weather conditions favorable for the formation of carburetor ice.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02FA107
- Event ID
- 20020530X00771
- Case number
- ATL02FA107
- 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: 3086f064fdb9fbf0a55cf8cc94cb69046aab028102e17b297ef3547fbe8bcc82; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:00:45.349Z.