CEN18LA020 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: fuel starvation on approach
From Groom, TX to Groom, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA020
- 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
Bell 206B
- 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
- N60EA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Groom, TXTo Groom, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1976)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 base
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot of the helicopter stated that there were 20 gallons of fuel on board when he departed on the aerial application flight. He flew to a 43-acre field and made steep turns while spraying the field. After dispensing the chemical, he made a steep, "hard right turn" en route to the operator's base, which was located about 3/4 mile west of the field. About 40 seconds after making the hard right turn and with the fuel gauge indicating 10 gallons remaining, the helicopter was on approach for landing. While on a right base leg to the landing zone and about 40 ft above ground level with about 35 kts airspeed, the pilot felt the "tail wag," and the engine stopped producing power. He performed an autorotation, but the tail impacted the ground during the landing flare, which resulted in substantial damage to the helicopter.
During the examination of the helicopter, 2 spoons full of fuel were drained from the airframe fuel filter assembly. When the fuel boost pumps were turned on, they initially sounded as though they were cavitating. With the fuel boost pumps running, 7 gallons of fuel were drained from the fuel tank through the airframe fuel filter assembly. The engine was removed from the airframe and placed on a test cell, where it operated normally.
The helicopter flight manual stated that, if installed, the FUEL LOW light would illuminate with about 20 gallons of fuel remaining. It stated that, if this light illuminated, the pilot should, "Land as soon as practical." The flight manual also contained a warning that, "Operation with both fuel boost pumps inoperative is not authorized. Due to possible fuel sloshing in unusual attitudes or out of trim conditions and one or both fuel boost pumps inoperative, the unusable fuel is 10 gallons."
It is likely that the engine experienced a total loss of power due to fuel starvation; however, the reason for the fuel starvation was not determined. The pilot decided to operate the helicopter with less than 20 gallons of fuel, and 7 gallons of fuel were found in the helicopter after the accident occurred. The final, steep right turn likely was uncoordinated, and it might have caused the fuel pickup in the tank to become unported, allowing air into the fuel line. However, the pilot reported that the boost pump circuit breakers were in, and they should have been able to deliver fuel to the fuel filter assembly.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to operate the helicopter with minimum fuel on board.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA020
- Event ID
- 20171025X82017
- Case number
- CEN18LA020
- 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: 069bea93659e1f085ba97ce0f476a8709884cf92981dfb8a3b51b07d4463488f; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:58:00.305Z.