Air Evac EMS Bell 206 L1 accident
Bell 206 L1 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Fairview Park Hospital Heliport (48GA) to Macon, GA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA152
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 L1
- 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
- N395AE
- Operator
- Air Evac Ems
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairview Park Hospital Heliport (48GA), Dublin, GATo Macon, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1980)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that he heard a noise from the engine deck followed by a "clicking" noise as he was starting to accelerate the helicopter forward on takeoff. The helicopter immediately began to descend then impacted the ground and bounced before coming to rest upright. The main rotor blades flexed and severed the vertical stabilizer. Examination of the engine's compressor section revealed the diffuser had separated into two sections, exposing the vanes. The diffuser is comprised of individual vanes that are brazed between two annular plates and a third support ring to form one solid diffuser assembly. Metallurgical examination of the separated plate and ring section revealed that the ring section separated through the braze joint at the forward interfaces of the vanes due to a large amount of incomplete braze joint surfaces on the vane airfoils. The vane assembly was marked with a Federal Aviation Administration parts manufacturing approval number. A search of the manufacturing history of the diffuser revealed that the part was sold to a turbine engine overhaul company about 13 years before the accident. The diffuser, which was zero-timed, was installed in the compressor and sent to the operator. A review of the engine logbook revealed that the diffuser had not been removed/repaired since it was installed on that date and that it had accrued a total of 5,763.1 hours at the time it failed. According to the company that sold the diffuser to the overhauler, any manufacturing history on the diffuser was no longer available due to the company’s 10-year retention policy for manufacturing records.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power on takeoff due to separation of the diffuser assembly as a result of incomplete braze joint surfaces on the vane airfoils.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA152
- Event ID
- 20190415X92143
- Case number
- ERA19LA152
- 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, cause areas. 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: 435b85aafd6bdaf1e204f88e152f1a363cf1eb3ab5ac19039361c3d4e7c8fb48; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:45:09.109Z.