MIA04LA123 · Bell 206B3
Bell 206B3 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From KPFN · Panama City, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA123
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 206B3
- 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
- N107PH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From KPFN · Panama City, FLTo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Partial 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he flew out from Panama City-Bay County International Airport to survey a boat located on Deer Point Lake, approximately 8 miles northeast of the airport. With an altitude of about 50 feet and a forward airspeed around 35 to 40 mph he entered a circling maneuver. While flying upwind he reduced engine RPM, and as he turned downwind, he pulled up on the collective, but felt the helicopter sinking instead of climbing. He then looked at the engine instruments and saw the rotor RPM going below 85%. Immediately, he pushed the collective down, but was unable to regain RPM. He deployed emergency floats about 10 feet above the water. The helicopter hit the water "hard" in about 4 feet of water and then rolled onto its right side, due to the right flotation bag being torn off upon impacting the water. The FAA inspector who responded to the accident stated, upon inspection of the helicopter, after recovery, it was found that a pneumatic tubing line had backed off the governor and caused the engine to go to minimum RPM. The governor was last installed 500 hours before the accident and showed signs of a torque seal on the B-nut. The pneumatic line that backed off the fitting is located on the backside of the governor and is hard to see and check for proper torque during routine maintenance.
Probable cause
Inadequate maintenance inspection resulting in the partial loss of engine power due to a loose pneumatic line on the governor and ditching of the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA123
- Event ID
- 20040901X01339
- Case number
- MIA04LA123
- 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: 3163c16ce0091d627b2f66554f550d38d8f971e6d562ea92d258cff96d3eac3b; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:17:59.978Z.