DEN08CA134 · Enstrom 280FX
Elite Helicopter Services Enstrom 280FX · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Centennial Airport (APA) to Centennial Airport (APA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN08CA134
- 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
Enstrom 280FX
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom 280
- 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
- N285SH
- Operator
- Elite Helicopter Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, COTo Centennial Airport (APA)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- Defining eventThe 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 (total)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was returning to land when he noted that the fuel level was low. Shortly thereafter, the engine lost power and the pilot attempted an autorotation to an open field, resulting in a hard landing, and substantial damage to the helicopter. The loss of engine power was due to fuel exhaustion. An examination of the remaining systems revealed no anomalies. According to the pilot, he departed with 19 gallons of fuel, and had calculated this represented 1 hour and 20 minutes of fuel.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper planning and decision making resulting in the loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's premature application of collective resulting in a hard landing and substantial damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08CA134
- Event ID
- 20080826X01313
- Case number
- DEN08CA134
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: c54cac4259a08a773541b77ceb8c04e0a3f45717e97d2864306bee4c6f7e384a; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:06:05.205Z.