ERA19FA142 · Robinson R44 II
Robinson R44 II · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Tampa, FL to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19FA142
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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
Robinson R44 II
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- 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
- N4046J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tampa, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FL
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2019)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 5 days before the accident, the helicopter's engine lost power and the owner performed an off-airport landing to a field. The helicopter was not damaged during the landing, and several days later, maintenance personnel examined the helicopter while still in the field. The mechanics examined the helicopter's fuel system, replaced a fuel servo, and after a successful test run of the engine, the commercial pilot departed with one of the mechanics on board for the accident flight in order to reposition the helicopter from the field to a maintenance facility. About 15 minutes into the flight, the engine lost power, and the pilot performed an autorotation to a roadway. After touchdown, the helicopter slid on the roadway, the main rotor contacted a telephone pole, and a 2.5-ft piece of a main rotor blade separated and impacted a truck driving on the roadway, fatally injuring the passenger and seriously injuring the driver of the truck.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter's engine revealed that the air induction inlet duct was partially collapsed. The inner rubberized fabric liner of the duct had partially delaminated and separated from the outer rubberized fabric, obstructing the interior volume of the duct. The wire stiffener between the two layers of fabric was displaced in two locations near the center of the duct length at a 90° bend. Further examination of the duct found a liquid residue in some areas of the duct that was consistent with castor oil, which was normally used in the assembly and curing of the duct during its manufacture. Given this information, it is likely that during the duct's manufacture, castor oil was inadvertently introduced between the duct's two fabric layers, interfering with the bond between the them. It is also likely that the duct then partially collapsed, which restricted airflow to the helicopter's engine and resulted in the losses of engine power that occurred both before and during the accident flight.
Probable cause
Contamination of and an inadequate bond between the two layers of fabric comprising the helicopter engine's air induction inlet duct, which resulted a partial collapse of the duct, obstruction of the airflow into the engine, and a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19FA142
- Event ID
- 20190404X54040
- Case number
- ERA19FA142
- 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: bf871f9ba045216b086c871784b25ab5cd87c70ad6f3bf7120b8178643f092f4; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:02:12.650Z.