MIA04LA129 · Bell 206B3
Bell 206B3 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Starkville, MS to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA129
- 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 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
- N96PH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Starkville, MSTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 (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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, 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 that he was en route, at an altitude of about 100 feet AGL, when all of a sudden he saw the low engine rpm light illuminate, and heard the associated audible alarm as the engine ceased operating. He said he immediately lowered the collective and raised the nose of the helicopter to regain rotor rpm, and made a hard autorotative landing to a clearing. An FAA inspector who responded to the accident scene stated that during the course of the postcrash examination he found fuel in the fuel tank. and upon further examination, found that the fuel filter was found to contain "50 percent dark colored water and trash", According to the inspector, dark water was found in the fuel pump filter, and the fuel tank, and in addition, the fuel control filter and fuel nozzle filter was partially clogged. Laboratory analysis of samples of fuel found in the accident helicopter confirmed the presence of particulate matter and water in the samples. According to the laboratory report, the particulate matter was determined to be microbiological growth that was resident in the fuel.
Probable cause
The operator's inadequate maintenance inspections and the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in the helicopter being operated with a contaminated fuel system, that resulted in fuel starvation, and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA129
- Event ID
- 20040930X01541
- Case number
- MIA04LA129
- 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: 4cd59f02c27fef5693f0f17ea12ec4a13ccad719422f24a85db81b730dece4b5; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:07:56.841Z.