DFW07CA086 · Brantly Helicopter B2
Brantly Helicopter B2 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Wilbarger County Airport (F05) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA086
- 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
Brantly Helicopter B2
- Aircraft type
- Brantly B2
- 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
- N5931X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilbarger County Airport (F05), Vernon, TXTo 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 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 3,696-hour pilot, who reported having accumulated a total of 96 hours in the same make and model as the accident helicopter, reported that while returning to the airport, following a short local flight, the engine lost power without warning. The pilot reported that the helicopter was at an altitude of approximately 75-feet above the ground when the loss of engine power occurred. The pilot added that he initiated an autorotation and due to his altitude, he did not have many forced landing options other than to continue straight ahead. The helicopter came to rest in the upright position in a field among mesquite trees. All three main rotor blades were destroyed and the fuselage sustained minor damage. Both the pilot and his passenger egressed the helicopter through the side doors without injuries. The helicopter was reported to have 15 gallons of fuel on board prior to its departure on the 15-minute flight. The reason for the reported loss of engine power could not be determined. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Inspector, who responded to the accident site, reported that the aircraft had been stored in a hangar with the airworthiness certificate removed for approximately 30 years prior to its re-issuance on February 15, 2007. The 1969 model helicopter was reported to have accumulated a total of 570 hours since new. Weather was reported as clear skies, wind from 200 degrees at 16 knots, and an altimeter setting of 29.90 inches of Mercury.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA086
- Event ID
- 20070403X00360
- Case number
- DFW07CA086
- 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: 958139d46272ee8b371ffd461c8a2ff98c891298d1d0d9bb43d4b28028fee681; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:58:07.394Z.