MIA05TA124 · Bell OH-58A
St. Johns County Sheriff's Office Bell OH-58A · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From St. Augustine, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05TA124
- 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
- Government
- 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 OH-58A
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- 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
- N244RP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Augustine, 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 (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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to reposition the helicopter to a high school for a static display. After takeoff from a confined area consisting of an immediately adjacent building, antenna, and a parking lot with numerous cars, the pilot executed a pedal turn to depart over the parking lot. During climb out while flying between 35 to 40 feet agl, and between 30 to 35 knots, he heard a "bang" and the helicopter yawed to the right. He later stated the right yaw may have been due to his over correction. He lowered the collective and turned left in an attempt to land on grass at the edge of the parking lot. He pulled collective to clear vehicles below and as a result, the helicopter impacted the ground hard; the main rotor blades collided with several vehicles. Examination of the helicopter revealed no discrepancies with the tail rotor drive system. The main drive shaft was fractured at both ends; no evidence of preexisting cracks were noted. Examination of the engine revealed leading and trailing edge damage to the first and second stage compressor blades, while the 3rd, 4th, and 5th stage compressor blades were fractured near the blade root. No evidence of preexisting cracking was noted on any of the fractured compressor blades.
Probable cause
The failure of the compressor section of the engine for undetermined reasons resulting in the total loss of engine power during the initial climb. A factor in the accident was the operator's use of a confined area for takeoff during non-emergency or routine situations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05TA124
- Event ID
- 20050708X00959
- Case number
- MIA05TA124
- 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: d658fcd86589bff34bdc15aca5a256e9a503fbc58e3070f44091a1d4d2faccc8; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:15:55.681Z.