ERA09LA047 · Bell 206B
Air Coastal Helicoters Bell 206B · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA) to Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operator. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA047
- 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
- N281CB
- Operator
- Air Coastal Helicoters Narrative disagrees
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), Lantana, FLTo Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), Lantana, FL
- 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
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Approximately 8 minutes after the helicopter departed, the engine lost power and the pilot initiated an autorotation. To clear powerlines near the forced landing area, the pilot used collective to extend the helicopter's glide. The helicopter then touched down hard, severing the tail boom. Examination of the engine revealed that the "B"-nut for the pressure compressor (Pc) line from the power turbine governor to the fuel control unit was detached. Prior to an engine test run at the manufacturer's facility, the "B"-nut was placed in the same manner in which it was found at the accident site, with no thread engagement. The engine was started, warmed up, and throttle advanced to 65 percent N1. The engine experienced an uncommanded power reduction and decelerated to a sub-idle setting. A visual examination showed that the "B"-nut had loosened entirely and there was a gap between the Pc line and the "T"-fitting. After the Pc line was reinstalled and the "B"-nut was tightened with the proper torque, the engine was restarted and ran within production test standards. The Rolls-Royce operation and maintenance manual gave a warning that "failure to properly install, align and tighten fuel, oil, and air fittings and tubes could result in an engine failure." On November 8, 2008, an entry in the engine logbook indicated that the engine gearbox had been opened and inspected this process required the "B"-nut to be loosened and the lines separated to access the gearbox.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to an undertorqued air line fitting to the fuel control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA047
- Event ID
- 20081111X83203
- Case number
- ERA09LA047
- 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: ae20295979dd23ca76b3d8f34a24cb85892273bf16e2191a0cda17d5ecb67219; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:32:29.014Z.