ERA18LA075 · Bell OH 58C
Spalding County Sheriffs Office Bell OH 58C · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during autorotation
From Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2) to Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA075
- 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 58C
- 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
- N942SC
- Operator
- Spalding County Sheriffs Office
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2), Griffin, GATo Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2), Griffin, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1968)
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor was providing training to a student pilot during a local public flight. According to the flight instructor, during the fifth simulated engine failure of the flight, the helicopter throttle was advanced for the power recovery. The engine then accelerated, and the engine and rotor tachometer needles were in their normal operating range. At that time, the flight instructor initiated a climb. About 4 to 5 seconds into the climb, when the speed was about 25 knots and the helicopter was at an altitude of 125 ft above ground level, the engine lost power. The instructor made a forced landing into a field, which resulted in substantial damage to the tailboom.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter showed proper throttle continuity and rigging as well as fuel system continuity. The engine was placed in a test cell, and the engine started immediately, accelerated smoothly, and ran continuously throughout the test protocol prescribed by the manufacturer. All measured performance parameters were within the manufacturer's acceptable range, which demonstrated that the engine, fuel control, and governor functioned as designed.
The available evidence indicated that the throttle was likely not fully opened at the initiation of the power recovery and that, when collective pitch was applied, the fuel control (while governed) could not provide the fuel required to sustain the climb. A decay of engine and rotor rpm resulted, which likely led to the instructor's perception that the engine had failed and his subsequent decision to make a forced landing. The altitude and time available at the point of the perceived failure was likely inadequate to overcome the time requirements for throttle inputs and turbine lag.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to fully open the throttle before initiating the power recovery in response to a simulated engine failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA075
- Event ID
- 20180129X83947
- Case number
- ERA18LA075
- 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: 9d8afc0ee36fbd9efd7dc6aa135cb8068dcea3ab514f4fca5502fc350f351a03; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:24:15.967Z.