ERA14LA269 · Garlick Helicopters Inc OH 58A+
Maine Helicopters Garlick Helicopters Inc OH 58A+ · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport (BHB) to Maine Helicopters Heliport (ME59)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA269
- 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
Garlick Helicopters Inc OH 58A+
- Aircraft type
- Garlick 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
- N650MH
- Operator
- Maine Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport (BHB), Bar Harbor, METo Maine Helicopters Heliport (ME59), Whitefield, ME
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1971)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 reported that he departed with a quantity of fuel that would nominally provide for 1.2 hours of flight. Twenty minutes into the 45-minute flight, the master caution warning light illuminated with no discernible corresponding panel segment caution light. The published emergency procedure for this scenario was to land as soon as possible. Instead, the pilot continued flight as the master caution warning light illuminated three more times over the next 15 minutes. The engine then experienced a total loss of power. The pilot entered an autorotation and completed a forced landing to trees, which resulted in substantial damage to the helicopter.
A detailed examination of the fuel system and associated warnings, airframe, engine controls, and fluid and pneumatic lines and a test run of the engine revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. About 10 to 11 gallons (65 pounds) of fuel were recovered from the helicopter, of which 1.3 gallons was unusable. Examination of the master caution light and associated caution panel segment lights revealed that the segment lights were positioned to the "dim" setting, which would have made it difficult or impossible to read in daylight conditions. The low fuel caution light was set to illuminate when there was between 65 and 98 pounds of fuel remaining. However, the manual advised that that illumination of the low fuel caution light does not mean that a fixed time remains and that the remaining fuel may not be available unless the helicopter remains in level or coordinated flight.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to land as soon as possible when the master caution warning light first illuminated as prescribed and his failure to ensure the proper setting of the caution panel segment lights before the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA269
- Event ID
- 20140530X71747
- Case number
- ERA14LA269
- 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: 9461da37a82c5e54908a7b788705eb310d50a3b623fde0fe1a92ff4371be65a7; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:41:43.681Z.