ERA12LA366 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Ruskin, FL to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA366
- 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
- N806LA
- Operator
- Joseph E. Leach II · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ruskin, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1973)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
While enroute at 500 feet above ground level, the pilot experienced a total loss of engine of engine power. According to the pilot, the initial indication was a slight yaw followed by the engine out warning horn. He immediately lowered the collective and entered a power-off autorotational landing to the beach. Upon touch down, the helicopter's skids dug into the soft sand and the main rotor blades contacted the tail boom causing damage to the drive shaft cover and severing the tail rotor drive shaft. The pilot and passengers exited the helicopter as soon as the main rotor stopped. Examination of the helicopter structure and systems showed no evidence of failure or malfunction. The engine was removed from the helicopter and placed in a test cell. Attempts to start the engine were unsuccessful and the fuel put was determined to be inoperative. The fuel pump was replaced and the engine started and operated within all specifications. Examination of the engine fuel pump determined the main drive shaft splines and the internal drive gear splines were worn away to the point of no spline engagement.
This model of fuel pump was required to have spline inspections every 100 hours, and ultimately required upgrade as a result of spline wear observed on some pumps. Rolls-Royce (formerly Allison) commercial engine bulletin CEB A-1352, dated August 21, 1997, required 100-hour spline inspections with compliance within 25 hours of receipt of bulletin. Spline inspections were an interim safeguard while product improvements were developed and validated. Rolls-Royce (Allison) commercial engine bulletin CEB 1355, dated April 30, 1998 required pump upgrade with compliance no later than March 31, 1999. Upon compliance with upgrade bulletin, spline inspections mandated by CEB A-1352 were no longer required. The model number of the fuel pump installed indicated that the required upgrade had not been completed. Had the inspections and upgrade been completed, the pump would not have failed in the manner it did.
Probable cause
Unknown personnel's failure to comply with the engine manufacturer's engine fuel pump replacement guidance, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to the engine fuel pump failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA366
- Event ID
- 20120528X61423
- Case number
- ERA12LA366
- 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: d6d56de75e7c64e473d5469dcb42ec23d6042a7bef102c23a83f1e0b08a3475f; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:17:03.677Z.