CEN18LA239 · Sibila MH-1
Sibila MH-1 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Beach City Airport (2D7) to Beach City Airport (2D7)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA239
- 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
Sibila MH-1
- Aircraft type
- Sibila MH-1
- 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
- N32KS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beach City Airport (2D7), Beach City, OHTo Beach City Airport (2D7), Beach City, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2017)
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot, who did not hold a rotorcraft rating, reported that he departed on a maintenance flight to track and balance the experimental, amateur-built helicopter's main rotor. As he was making the approach to land, the helicopter was about 40 ft above ground level when the engine lost total power with no warning. He entered an autorotation for the forced landing, but within seconds the helicopter impacted terrain, the skids collapsed, and it rolled on its side. A postaccident engine run/test was conducted, and the engine started with no hesitation; however, the run time was limited due to damaged cooling fans. The postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Thus, the reason for the total loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA239
- Event ID
- 20180625X20759
- Case number
- CEN18LA239
- 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: aad5574d2378e25df07f9f87cd107139671682d10855799bd007cbc5b21f3999; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:39:15.985Z.