Airlift Helicopters Bell Helicopter Textron 206L-1 accident
Bell Helicopter Textron 206L-1 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA390
- 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 Helicopter Textron 206L-1
- 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
- N2018R
- Operator
- Airlift Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG), Flagstaff, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1981)
- 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 · 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 (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
The pilot reported that the engine lost power while the helicopter was in cruise flight about 1,500 ft above ground level. He subsequently entered an autorotation and performed an emergency off-airport landing. During the descent, he maneuvered the helicopter to avoid obstacles; the helicopter subsequently landed hard, and the tailboom separated.
Examination of the engine revealed that the outer portion of the engine's first-stage turbine blades and three vanes from the first-stage nozzle were thermally damaged. The turbine blades' microstructure exhibited signatures consistent with an engine overtemperature event; however, it could not be determined when the overtemperature damage occurred. The postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no additional evidence of a mechanical malfunction that would have precluded normal operation.
Weight and balance calculations revealed that, when the helicopter departed, it was over its allowable gross takeoff weight but that it was under its allowable gross operational weight at the time of the engine power loss.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to an overtemperature event that thermally damaged the turbine blades and vanes, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA390
- Event ID
- 20130828X02251
- Case number
- WPR13LA390
- 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: e3311596151842ffaae8f5001c6135354f3db0af5a077b57e8eca12dbac007ac; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:39:09.348Z.