ERA10LA383 · Hiller UH-12E
Haddock Flying Service Hiller UH-12E · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Holly Hill, SC to Holly Hill, SC
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA383
- 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
Hiller UH-12E
- Aircraft type
- Hiller UH-12
- 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
- N104HH
- Operator
- Haddock Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Holly Hill, SCTo Holly Hill, SC
- 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
- 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 pilot stated that as he approached a tree line for aerial application his chemical ran out. As he turned back to reload the chemical, the engine experienced a total loss of power. The pilot quickly conducted an autorotation and collided with trees before coming to rest on the ground. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the combustion chamber fuel spray nozzle was clogged with carbon and soot deposits, which is likely the result of the nozzle not being properly inspected and cleaned during the last 100-hour inspection. A review of the engine maintenance logbooks revealed that the last 100-hour inspection was completed 41 days prior to the accident. According to the aircraft Hobbs time, the engine accumulated 40 hours since the 100-hour inspection.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel's improper inspection and cleaning of the fuel nozzle, which resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA383
- Event ID
- 20100729X40852
- Case number
- ERA10LA383
- 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: 76edfda5fa71f597da37232dca54165378adf69db9f369eb07a860fe052c9d51; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:46:22.024Z.