FTW04LA212 · Enstrom F-28F
Enstrom F-28F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From De Leon, TX (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04LA212
- 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
Enstrom F-28F
- 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
- N78616
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From De Leon, TX (no airport)To not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Leak
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, line fitting › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 9,375-hour pilot was giving attendees of a local festival 6-7 minute helicopter rides. He departed with two passengers and climbed to an altitude of 500 feet above ground level (agl). Shortly after, the engine began firing through the exhaust and began to lose power. The pilot entered an autorotation and prepared to land in a school playground. While maneuvering toward the playground, the engine stopped producing power. During the landing, the helicopter slid forward, the skids collapsed and the main rotor severed the tail boom. Before exiting the helicopter, the pilot secured the electrical switches, the magnetos, and turned off the fuel shut-off valve. Examination of the engine revealed that when then fuel shut-off valve was turned back on, fuel began to drain from the port where the main fuel line attached to the fuel manifold valve. The b-nut, which secured the line to the manifold, was partially attached to the port and was finger loose. The b-nut was then tightened, and the engine was test run on the airframe. It started immediately and ran at various power settings without interruption. According to the pilot, he had removed and reassembled the fuel manifold valve approximately nine hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly secure a fuel line, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to leakage and subsequent fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04LA212
- Event ID
- 20040816X01224
- Case number
- FTW04LA212
- 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: f60e90b56d61e04245c86a4c0e5ab727702d2385cc757263187fddd515f0a4b4; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:10:35.562Z.