DEN04LA145 · Bell 214B-1
Bell 214B-1 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) to Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04LA145
- 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
Bell 214B-1
- Aircraft type
- Bell 214
- 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
- N214B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, COTo Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE), Aspen, CO
- 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 · hover out of ground effect
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Electrical system › Inadvertent activation
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Shorted
- Fuel system, fuel shutoff › Activated
- Maintenance, modification › Improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, as he brought the helicopter to a 90-foot hover, he felt a "slight shudder" as the engine experienced a compressor stall. He stated that the engine rpm dropped to idle and he noticed the fuel flow had dropped to "idle fuel flow." He turned the helicopter downhill and attempted a forced landing on a nearby ski slope. The helicopter struck the ground with its nose, slid approximately 30 feet, and rolled over on its left side. The impact crushed the forward section of the fuselage, buckled the tail boom, and separated the vertical fin, tail rotor assembly, and both landing gear skids. The engine continued to run at idle after the helicopter came to rest. During a serviceability inspection of the engine's wire harness, a broken wire was located in the overspeed control unit's cannon plug. The wire in the "crimp type" cannon plug had been repaired with a solder joint, which is not allowed due to the close tolerance of the pins. According to the technician, the broken wire condition, in itself, would not engage the overspeed system or result in the loss of engine power. However, it was noted that, due to the close tolerance of the pins, any movement of the broken wire could enable the solder joint on one pin to touch the other pin. During a bench test, the technician stated that he "shorted pin B to pin C." This shorted condition resulted in the inadvertent activation of the fuel shut-off valve, which would result in the reduction of engine power to approximately 50 percent.
Probable cause
the inadvertent activation of the engine's fuel shut off valve, resulting in the reduction of engine power to 50 percent due to an improper cannon plug wire repair on the engine's wire harness assembly. Contributing factors include the improper wire repair, the low altitude, and the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04LA145
- Event ID
- 20040923X01483
- Case number
- DEN04LA145
- 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: ac4a3ef14c39b386acaa06eed62402396df4212849c4dd83f1fa878184ff4432; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:42:52.143Z.