WPR12LA125 · Aerospatiale AS 355F1
TGR Helicopters Aerospatiale AS 355F1 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Makakilo City, HI to Makakilo City, HI
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA125
- 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
Aerospatiale AS 355F1
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-355
- 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
- N101MZ
- Operator
- TGR Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Makakilo City, HITo Makakilo City, HI
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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 · hover
- 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 (partial)
- 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
During external load operations, the right (No. 2) engine experienced a loss of engine power; the associated engine chip light illuminated. The pilot executed a running landing to a nearby landing zone. During the landing, the helicopter encountered rough terrain, which resulted in deformation of the tail boom skin. Postaccident examination of the No. 2 engine revealed that a turbine blade had separated from the 3rd stage turbine wheel. Metallurgical examination of the blade determined that it had failed as a result of high-cycle fatigue probably due to an intermittent vibratory state. The engine manufacturer issued a service bulletin in 2006 and a revised bulletin in 2009 that systematically removed the 3rd stage turbine wheel that was susceptible to this failure mode from the fleet of Model 250 Series II engines. The service bulletin required that the 3rd stage turbine wheel must be replaced at overhaul or if the helicopter experienced an one-engine inoperable (OEI) condition. The turbine wheel had not been replaced, and it could not be determined if the helicopter had experienced an OEI condition.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power while maneuvering over rough/uneven terrain that was precipitated by the failure of a 3rd stage turbine blade as a result of high-cycle fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA125
- Event ID
- 20120308X54424
- Case number
- WPR12LA125
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-03-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e8e20d3f6d7908aed8c7b2843bece182570fa457d6af58d3c3a6f80ebcaaaf9d; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:24:46.795Z.