WPR14LA084 · Eurocopter EC 130 B4 B
Papillon Airways Eurocopter EC 130 B4 B · Accident: hard landing during autorotation
From Boulder City Municipal Airport (KBVU) to Boulder City Municipal Airport (KBVU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA084
- 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
Eurocopter EC 130 B4 B
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter EC-130
- 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
- N133GC
- Operator
- Papillon Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boulder City Municipal Airport (KBVU), Boulder City, NVTo Boulder City Municipal Airport (KBVU), Boulder City, NV
- 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 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
- Autorotation
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that, during a postmaintenance operational check flight and while on final approach for landing, the fuel pressure indicator light illuminated, and the engine "flamed out." The pilot lowered the collective to initiate an autorotation; however, due to the low altitude and airspeed, the helicopter subsequently landed hard and rolled over.
During a postaccident examination of the wreckage, a main fuel supply line B-nut fitting was found without the safety wire, and the nut was loose when turned by hand. Before the accident flight, the line had been disconnected during a task to replace the bidirectional suspension cross-bar assembly, and the accident flight was the first flight since the task was performed. According to the noncertificated maintenance technician who performed the task, the line was removed to defuel the fuel tank, which was contrary to manufacturer's maintenance manual instructions. Based on the evidence, it is likely that the B-nut fitting was not properly tightened and safety-wired during reassembly, which allowed it to back off due to normal engine vibration and resulted in the interruption of the fuel flow during flight.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the noncertificated maintenance technician’s failure to properly tighten and safety wire a B-nut fitting. Contributing to the accident was the maintenance technician’s failure to follow the manufacturer’s maintenance manual instructions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA084
- Event ID
- 20140101X85805
- Case number
- WPR14LA084
- 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: da97f138cd37d53b389bc1b1046f65de4930c3823a0efd143816e26a0d65f70b; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:13:29.655Z.