LAX06LA072 · Eurocopter AS350BA
Eurocopter AS350BA · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From KOGG · Kahului, HI to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06LA072
- 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
Eurocopter AS350BA
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter AS350
- 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
- N3607P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From KOGG · Kahului, HITo 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
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- 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
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Failure, total
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While flying a sightseeing tour over a dense tropical forest the helicopter experienced a total loss of engine power and autorotated into the forest canopy. Forty-four minutes into a 1-hour sightseeing tour the helicopter vibrated, shuddered, and the low rotor rpm warning horn sounded. The pilot entered an autorotation and tried to arrest the helicopter's forward velocity before settling into the treetops. The helicopter dropped nose first towards the forest floor, and came to rest on its right side suspended in the trees a few feet from the ground. During the subsequent engine examination it was determined that a turbine blade from the second stage gas producer turbine had separated from the turbine wheel. A material laboratory analysis determined that the turbine blade failure was a result of a fatigue fracture that was initiated at a corrosion/oxidation pit. As a result of the investigation into the engine failure, the engine manufacturer has reduced the life limit of the second stage turbine blades from 6,000 hours to 3,000 hours, and implemented additional turbine inspection criteria.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to a fatigue failure of a turbine blade. A factor in the accident was the lack of a suitable forced landing site.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06LA072
- Event ID
- 20060113X00077
- Case number
- LAX06LA072
- 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: a7f61802c3f93cc1c682acc0b3b101d03b2fb2e0fd4676b6412b4a1529292a4a; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:56:02.835Z.