ERA18TA076 · Vertical Aviation Technologies 260L HUMMINGBIRD
Vertical Aviation Technologies 260L HUMMINGBIRD · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From Potsdam Municipal Airport Damon Field (PTD) to Harrisville, NY (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18TA076
- 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
Vertical Aviation Technologies 260L HUMMINGBIRD
- Aircraft type
- Vertical Aviation Technologies 260
- 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
- N4045
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Potsdam Municipal Airport Damon Field (PTD), Potsdam, NYTo Harrisville, NY (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2010)
- 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
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a cross-country flight in an experimental amateur-built helicopter that was equipped with an automobile engine. When the airplane was about 6 miles from the destination and at a cruise altitude of 500 ft above ground level, the engine sputtered once and then lost all power. The pilot performed an autorotation into a low-lying valley with short trees. During the landing, the main and tail rotors contacted the trees, resulting in substantial damage.
Postaccident testing revealed that one of the two electric fuel pumps did not operate when direct current was applied to it, indicating that the pump had failed during flight. According to the manufacturer, both fuel pumps are to be used for takeoff and landing, but only one fuel pump is necessary during cruise flight. The pilot was using one fuel pump during cruise flight, and the fuel pump that failed was likely the one in use at the time. The fuel pump failure resulted in fuel starvation and a subsequent total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The failure of an electric fuel pump, which resulted in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power during cruise flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18TA076
- Event ID
- 20180129X21947
- Case number
- ERA18TA076
- 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: cdc90ede2fea0bf454de042749cf968c1a45d7fb73483de448f8eaccfaa0808d; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:23:49.438Z.