NYC82FA083 · Bell 206L
Island Helicopter Bell 206L · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From New York City, NY to New York City, NY
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC82FA083
- 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
- 0
- 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 206L
- 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
- N16959
- Operator
- Island Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New York City, NYTo New York City, NY
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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, fuel control › Failure, partial
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New York City, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT DEPARTED THE 34TH STREET HELIPORT ON A LOCAL SIGHTSEEING FLT TO THE STATUE OF LIBERTY & RETURN. AS THE FLT CROSSED LOWER MANHATTAN, ABOUT 1/4 MI FROM THE EAST RIVER, THE PLT HEARD THE LOW RPM AUDIO SIGNAL. HE LOWERED THE COLLECTIVE & ROTOR RPM RETURNED TO THE GREEN. WHILE TURNING TO THE EAST RIVER THE GENERATOR-OUT & ENG-OUT LIGHTS' ILLUMINATED. THE FLOATS WERE INFLATED & THE HELICOPTER CONTACTED THE WATER IN A LEVEL ATTITUDE. THE NOSE THEN CONTACTED THE WATER & THE CHIN BUBBLE BROKE. WATER ENTERED THE HELICOPTER & IT ROLLED RIGHT TO AN INVERTED POSITION. INVESTIGATIONDISCLOSED THAT THE FILTER LINE BETWEEN THE COMPRESSOR SCROLL & THE POWER CONTROL UNIT HAD BROKEN AT THE FILTER END. A VISUAL EXAMINATION OF THE FAILED PC LINE & THE B-NUT FITTING DISCLOSED THAT THE FRACTURE OCCURRED AT THE OUTBOARDEND OF THE FERRUL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC82FA083
- Event ID
- 20020917X02546
- Case number
- NYC82FA083
- 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: 2d94048bfcc5eefd596b0669cf10033b38f4cb6e00ce2b59da334dcaad16c036; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:20:19.469Z.