ERA10LA362 · Garlick Helicopters Inc OH-58A+
Horizon Helicopters Garlick Helicopters Inc OH-58A+ · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Newbury, MA to Plum Island Airport (2B2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA362
- 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
Garlick Helicopters Inc OH-58A+
- Aircraft type
- Garlick OH-58
- 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
- N802JB
- Operator
- Horizon Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newbury, MATo Plum Island Airport (2B2), Rowley, MA
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was conducting an aerial application flight when the low rotor rpm audio warning sounded. The pilot elected to fly the helicopter for another 30 minutes to ensure normal operation. Shortly thereafter, about 200 feet above ground level and at 70 knots, the low rotor rpm audio warning sounded again. The pilot lowered the collective to restore rotor rpm, but engine and rotor speed accelerated through the upper limits. The pilot then reduced the throttle to idle and performed an autorotation. The helicopter landed hard into a salt marsh, buckling the tail boom. The pilot did not report any flight control anomalies with the helicopter.
A postaccident examination of the governor drive housing and driveshaft assemblies revealed that the inner and outer raceways were "frosted" in the ball tracks. Additionally, the ball tracks were offset from the center of the raceway in a manner consistent with a thrust load towards the driveshaft nut, relative to the drive housing. The ball track offset was not circumferentially uniform, suggesting that the bearing inner races were misaligned relative to the outer bearing races. In general, such misalignment typically results in excessive forces and subsequent fatigue failure of the ball separator. The failure of the drive bearings caused the power turbine governor to provide the incorrect signal to the main fuel control. A review of the engine records indicated that the last overhaul of the power turbine governor was at 1,942.9 hours time since new. The power turbine governor has accumulated an additional 1,590 hours time since overhaul. The power governor turbine time before overhaul (TBO) time is 2,000 hours.
Probable cause
The failure of the power turbine governor internal driveshaft bearings, resulting in the failure of the governor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA362
- Event ID
- 20100716X02415
- Case number
- ERA10LA362
- 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: 3ad13b70aadb1ffaa1d51a75e4d62551cf650a4da35b0784aa124a45cdd51686; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:42:26.579Z.