IAD05LA080 · Navickas Load Runner 2000
Navickas Load Runner 2000 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Elmer, NJ (no airport) to Hammonton Municipal Airport (N81)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05LA080
- 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
- 2 · 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
Navickas Load Runner 2000
- Aircraft type
- Navickas LOAD RUNNER 2000
- 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
- N200LR
- Operator
- Thomas J. Navickas · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elmer, NJ (no airport)To Hammonton Municipal Airport (N81), Hammonton, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Partial 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 exhaustion; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, 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 helicopter was proceeding to a nearby airport for fuel, but didn't arrive, and the wreckage was located 2 days later in a wooded area. On-scene examination by FAA inspectors revealed the wreckage to be "mostly intact and contained within the immediate crash scene." Nearby treetops were sheared, and the main rotor blades were fractured into three, approximately 5-foot sections. The helicopter had come to rest on its left side, and there was an impact mark on an 18-inch diameter tree, about 55 inches off the ground, near the helicopter's nose. "The scene had no strong odor of jet fuel," and there was no fuel in the fuel tank, and no fuel in the fuel filter or fuel lines, but some fuel and dirt in the fuel filter bowl.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight decision, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and subsequent loss of engine power. A factor was the wooded area, into which, the pilot had to autorotate.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05LA080
- Event ID
- 20050628X00887
- Case number
- IAD05LA080
- 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: 12fc13a2563aa9b8b15b9a52a818e68d591daadbd60576be008b248c3f7022fd; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:00:59.070Z.