CEN18LA260 · Bell 206 B
Bell 206 B · Accident: fuel starvation while maneuvering
From Bentley, IL to Bentley, IL
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA260
- 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 206 B
- 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
- N224KM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bentley, ILTo Bentley, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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 helicopter pilot indicated that, about 10 minutes after takeoff, while making a turn during an aerial application flight, he noticed the low fuel pressure light illuminate; the fuel pressure gage indicated 0 psi, and the fuel quantity gage indicated 15 gallons. The engine subsequently lost total power, and the pilot performed an autorotation in preparation for a forced landing, during which the helicopter nosed over and sustained damage to the main and tail rotors.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed that the fuel quantity gage read 4 gallons, and the fuel tank contained about 9.5 gallons of fuel. Both fuel boost pumps tested normally. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The helicopter's flight manual stated to land as soon as practical when fuel quantity was less than 20 gallons and contained a warning that uncoordinated turns and maneuvers were to be avoided with a fuel quantity of less than 20 gallons. The manual also stated that, due to possible fuel sloshing in unusual attitudes or out-of-trim conditions and one or both fuel boost pumps inoperative, the unusable fuel was 10 gallons.
The turn during spray operations with less than 20 gallons of fuel likely caused the fuel to unport, allowing air into the fuel line. This resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. The pilot did not ensure that adequate fuel was on board for the maneuvering flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to ensure that adequate fuel was on board for the maneuvering flight, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA260
- Event ID
- 20180708X03414
- Case number
- CEN18LA260
- 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: 9eb95f2ff4cd9f241c34d934927d6d458338228c0e58a216d8831b3ac6cf4739; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:46:29.145Z.