CEN20LA261 · Enstrom 280 FX
Enstrom 280 FX · Accident on approach
From Southeast Iowa Regional Airport (BRL) to Des Moines International Airport (DSM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA261
- 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 280 FX
- Aircraft type
- Enstrom 280
- 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
- N282SH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southeast Iowa Regional Airport (BRL), Burlington, IATo Des Moines International Airport (DSM), Des Moines, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the personal flight stated that during a final approach for landing, the engine and rotor speeds decreased below the green arcs on their respective instruments, and the low-speed alarm sounded. The rotor speed and engine speed remained in synchronization and decreased at the same rate. The pilot stated he added throttle but neither the rotor speed nor the engine speed increased. He thought that the helicopter lost engine power and performed an autorotation, lowering the collective and initially pushing forward on the cyclic. The pilot stated he did not perform the autorotation perfectly and the outcome would have been better with a better execution of the autorotation. The proper entry into the autorotation utilizes aft cyclic inputs.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter confirmed flight control continuity. A postaccident engine run excluded the turbocharger system and used engine settings that were different than those of the original engine, which was insufficient to validate normal and original engine operation. The turbocharged engine was a supplemental type certificate installation, and those parameters were not provided and are unknown.
Probable cause
The partial loss of rotor and engine speed during approach for landing, which resulted in an autorotation and impact with terrain. The reason for the partial loss of rotor and engine speed could not be determined based on the available evidence. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s improper execution of the autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA261
- Event ID
- 20200704X12416
- Case number
- CEN20LA261
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-07-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1dedce434964db0b77a32a11af6ee5a4520f1947b90975c999d8318ab7c2c252; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:01:03.022Z.