FTW03LA153 · Rotorway Exec 162F
Rotorway Exec 162F · Accident: loss of engine power during landing
From Longview, TX to East Texas Regional Airport (GGG)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA153
- 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
Rotorway Exec 162F
- Aircraft type
- Rotorway EXEC 162
- 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
- N212DP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Longview, TXTo East Texas Regional Airport (GGG), Longview, 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
- Landing · emergency landing
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 269-hour pilot attempted to contact the air traffic control tower when the aircraft was approximately 250 feet agl. The pilot stated as he pressed the push to talk (PTT) button on the cyclic control, the "engine had a flame out." Due to obstacles in the flight path of the helicopter, the pilot was forced to turn the helicopter and "attempt a landing on a downhill slope." During the landing, the turbine powered helicopter nosed over and came to rest on its right side. During a telephone interview, the pilot reported to the NTSB investigator-in-charge that he was having problems with the radio and installed a new one prior to departing. The pilot stated that after takeoff he pressed the PTT and it "caused the ignition system to go out."
Probable cause
The failure of the engine ignition system for undetermined reasons resulting in a loss of engine power. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for an auto rotational landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA153
- Event ID
- 20030521X00708
- Case number
- FTW03LA153
- 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: ee9159c9de1e7c5534d534c9c7e0d45553a9fc7ca8ffb1c50efd447056a075e1; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:17:30.910Z.