Panther Helicopters Bell 407 accident
Bell 407 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Ship Shoal 208H, GM to Ship Shoal 209A, GM
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA491
- 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 407
- Aircraft type
- Bell 407
- 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
- N53LP
- Operator
- Panther Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ship Shoal 208H, GMTo Ship Shoal 209A, GM
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 1998)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter departed from an offshore oil platform with the pilot and two passengers onboard. The pilot reported that he heard a loud "bang" just after the turboshaft-powered helicopter lifted off. The low rotor rpm horn sounded, and the pilot subsequently maneuvered the helicopter for a forced water landing and deployed the float system. The helicopter sustained substantial damage when its main rotor blades impacted the water, which resulted in the engine and transmission separating from the helicopter. The three occupants were subsequently rescued from the helicopter by boat. The platform was venting methane gas on the day of the accident; the pilot was not informed about the vented gas.
Examination of the helicopter's engine revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. A review of data from the helicopter's engine monitoring system (EMS) revealed that, just after liftoff, the engine accelerated at an excessive rate while the full-authority digital electronic engine control system reduced the metered fuel to the engine. The data also revealed that an engine surge occurred followed by an engine flameout. The pilot's report that he heard a bang during takeoff and the EMS data are consistent with the engine experiencing a compressor surge due to the ingestion of vented methane gas.
Probable cause
The ingestion of vented methane gas into the helicopter’s engine during takeoff, which caused an engine compressor surge that led to a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA491
- Event ID
- 20130815X95202
- Case number
- CEN13FA491
- 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: c2ce59aeaf8a5edae7288cb700c7b0e058e09b67de66e60c1e72c0c6c19e0578; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:33:08.499Z.