ERA19LA273 · Robinson R44 Undesignat
Rowland Air Chem Robinson R44 Undesignat · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Sardis, GA to Sardis, GA
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA273
- 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
Robinson R44 Undesignat
- 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
- N827JE
- Operator
- Rowland Air Chem
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sardis, GATo Sardis, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 1995)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (partial)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was about 100 ft above ground level during an aerial application fight when the engine experienced a partial loss of power. The pilot performed an autorotation and the helicopter impacted trees and terrain. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the crankshaft idler gear flange, which should have been secured to the left half of the crankcase by a bolt and stud, had separated from its mounting location. Worn fragments of the bolt and stud were recovered from the oil sump. Metallurgical examination of the fasteners revealed that they failed due to rotating bending fatigue, which allowed the crankshaft idler gear to disengage and resulted in a loss of engine power. A review of maintenance records revealed that the engine had been in service for about 20 years and 1,900 operating hours since its last major overhaul, which is 8 years and 400 hours beyond the manufacturer recommended time between overhauls.
Probable cause
Fatigue failure of the fasteners on the engine crankshaft, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power and a subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA273
- Event ID
- 20190917X85414
- Case number
- ERA19LA273
- 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: 6e8f1688c322398c2d0b2f13d9a8fc5e2a5a99dbaa0fa91747ad1abd68aeb61e; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:08:59.807Z.