CEN14TA020 · Bell OH-58A
Missouri State Highway Patrol Bell OH-58A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF) to Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14TA020
- 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
- Government
- 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 OH-58A
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- 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
- N283MP
- Operator
- Missouri State Highway Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF), Jefferson City, MOTo Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF), Jefferson City, MO
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot receiving instruction reported that the purpose of the flight was to remain in the airport traffic pattern while practicing autorotation landings. He stated that, after about 45 minutes of flight training, the engine began to fluctuate between full and half power while the helicopter was climbing on a downwind leg. The helicopter also experienced an uncommanded yaw with each engine power fluctuation. The flight instructor took control of the helicopter and entered a straight-in autorotation toward a nearby field. The helicopter touched down with a slight forward ground run, during which the left skid dug into the soft soil, which caused the helicopter to rotate 180 degrees before it stopped. The main rotor blades severed the tail boom from the fuselage during the forced landing.
A postaccident examination revealed no airframe anomalies that would have prevented normal operation of the helicopter. During a test run, the accident engine demonstrated normal operation at all power settings and was capable of producing maximum takeoff horsepower. Uncontaminated fuel was found onboard the helicopter. The reason for the reported loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examinations of the engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14TA020
- Event ID
- 20131028X93430
- Case number
- CEN14TA020
- 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, coordinates. 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: b2f1432ddfc601b8907dc1dc9109a511958c638f13156f0ef4c73a52b43a559e; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:02:35.287Z.