ERA19LA126 · Bell OH 58A
St Johns County Sheriffs Office Bell OH 58A · Accident: fuel related while maneuvering
From Ponte Vedra Bch, FL to Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA126
- 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
- 0
- 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 OH 58A
- 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
- N519P
- Operator
- St Johns County Sheriffs Office
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ponte Vedra Bch, FLTo Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ), St Augustine, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1973)
- 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
- 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 related
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the third aerial surveillance flight of the day, about 5 minutes after takeoff while orbiting at an altitude of 1,100 ft mean sea level, the helicopter experienced a total loss of engine power. The pilot performed an autorotation to a fairway on a golf course. During the landing, the helicopter sustained substantial damage to the tail boom and the fuselage frame around the windscreen. An initial postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed that air was present in the fuel lines, which likely led to an interruption in fuel flow to the engine and the loss of engine power. Additional examination confirmed continuity of the fuel system. The engine was subsequently run in the manufacturer’s test cell facility and met all performance standards with no anomalies noted. Given the postaccident findings and that the helicopter departed with the fuel tank about 3/4 full, the investigation was unable to determine how or where air was introduced into the fuel lines.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the introduction of air into fuel lines and an interruption of fuel flow to the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA126
- Event ID
- 20190313X90607
- Case number
- ERA19LA126
- 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: 892bbcc0696e196b463ac9cd7b12ad7ab4f537a4573214f58331d4a36c5792f1; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:39:55.284Z.