CEN20LA051 · Enstrom F28 A
Enstrom F28 A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Salaika Aviation Airport (07TA) to Salaika Aviation Airport (07TA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA051
- 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
Enstrom F28 A
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom F28
- 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
- N57SJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salaika Aviation Airport (07TA), Danbury, TXTo Salaika Aviation Airport (07TA), Danbury, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1975)
- 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
- 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, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot turned the helicopter onto the crosswind leg of the traffic pattern during a training flight when the engine suddenly began to run rough and lost partial power. The flight instructor took the controls and executed an autorotation into a clearing. The skids of the helicopter sank into the soft mud, the rotor blades contacted the ground, and the helicopter rolled onto its side. Examination of the engine revealed that a portion of the No. 3 cylinder intake valve had broken off and migrated into the No. 1 cylinder, where it lodged between the No. 1 cylinder's intake valve and seat, holding that valve in the open position and resulting in the partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The failure of the engine's No.3 intake valve resulting is a loss of engine power and a rollover following the autorotation to soft ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA051
- Event ID
- 20191231X03945
- Case number
- CEN20LA051
- 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: 446ee56d6d57606d257bf8c45e5a053df56063b5cd0e3ef818d41f27701e4162; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:50:44.875Z.