Rotorcraft Leasing Bell 206 L1 accident
Bell 206 L1 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From HI-A442, GM to HI-A515, GM
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA036
- 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
Bell 206 L1
- 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
- N272M
- Operator
- Rotorcraft Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HI-A442, GMTo HI-A515, GM
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter had landed on an off-shore oil platform and was refueled. It then took off with one passenger. Shortly after lifting off, the pilot "heard a loud pop as the nose of the aircraft passed over the edge of the helideck. The noise was simultaneously accompanied by illumination of the engine out warning light and a needle split indication was observed on the engine and rotor tachometer gauge. As the aircraft yawed and lost climb performance, the pilot lowered the collective pitch full down and activated the floats. Upon landing on the water, the aircraft rolled left until inverted. The helicopter was later recovered and the engine disassembled and examined. The only anomaly noted was a loose Pc line, which would cause a loss of fuel flow and subsequent loss of engine power down to or below idle. It was determined that the torque required to realign the B-nut would be between hand-tight and 27 inch-pounds. The required torque is 80 to 120 inch-pounds. Torque values on the other air line fittings between the power turbine governor and the fuel control were found to range from 55 to 85 inch-pounds. A review of the engine maintenance records revealed that 36.7 hours prior to the accident, the turbine module was completely disassembled and overhauled. This would have required the removal and re-installation of the Pc line.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to maintenance personnel's failure to correctly torque the Pc line following removal and reinstallation of the turbine module.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA036
- Event ID
- 20091102X43921
- Case number
- CEN10LA036
- 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. 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: fbbf7ce077887eb34820f00020458f7ffe3f20d4568c79c87c4d90f7238a030b; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:27:46.027Z.