DFW07LA173 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Dallas Love Field (DAL) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07LA173
- 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 206B
- 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
- N4YJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TXTo Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TX
- 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
- Compressor assembly, blade › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After departing their home base, the flight reported on the traffic and news for a local television and radio station for 42 minutes. While the helicopter was transiting from another location for an upcoming news story, the helicopter experienced a loss of engine power while in cruise flight at 800-feet above ground level. The pilot reported that he initiated a left 180-degree turn to a clear area. The autorotation was terminated over tall grass and during touchdown the helicopter rolled over and came to rest on its right side. The accident site was a wooded area with soft soil on rough and uneven terrain. The 8,000-hour helicopter pilot reported having accumulated approximately 7,000-hours in the Bell 206 helicopter, with 200-hours within the last 90 days and 50 hours in the last 30 days. The pilot reported that he did not perceive any anomalies or engine warnings prior to the loss of engine power. A preliminary examination of the helicopter was conducted under the supervision and control of the NTSB Investigator-in-Charge. Initial examination of the engine revealed that the compressor (N1) would not rotate. The engine was subsequently removed from the airframe and shipped to the engine manufacturer's facilities for further evaluation and teardown examination. The engine examination revealed that all of the blade airfoils for the 5th stage compressor had separated from the wheel, with no signs of distress on the first 4 stages of the compressor. Damage to the 6th stage of the compressor and compressor case assembly were considered to be secondary. A detailed metallurgical examination of the compressor revealed that the compressor failure was result of the separation of one or more of the 5th stage compressor blades. Some of the blade fragments were recovered during the engine examination; however they were heavily damaged precluding further analysis. The reason for the failure of the compressor blade(s) could not be determined due to the extensive secondary damage of the components involved.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power as result of the failure of one or more of the compressor blades for the 5th stage compressor for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the pilot to execute a successful autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07LA173
- Event ID
- 20070803X01092
- Case number
- DFW07LA173
- 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: 16a92a5610978aade0950d86e04e502cc1e5a96caa37c083146fb86057fab4d2; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:46:05.841Z.