ERA21FA130 · Bell 206 B
Caribbean Buzz Management Bell 206 B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Cyril E. King Airport (STT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21FA130
- 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
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Bell 206 B
- 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
- N13AT
- Operator
- Caribbean Buzz Management
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cyril E. King Airport (STT), St. Thomas, USVITo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 · 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 (total)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a short sightseeing flight around an island, the helicopter lost total engine power and descended into heavily wooded, steep terrain. The majority of the helicopter was consumed by a postcrash fire. The helicopter’s proximity to the rising terrain at the time of the power loss likely precluded the pilot from performing a successful autorotation.
Examination of the engine found evidence of fatigue fractures on two of the stage 3 compressor blades and fatigue fractures on the majority of the stage 6 compressor blades. Analysis of the remainder of the stages 3 and 6 compressor wheels showed that they met material requirements. Thermal damage to the compressor case halves precluded determining whether the stages 3 and 6 blades were rubbing against the case and its plastic coating, which could have initiated the fatigue fractures. While pitting corrosion could also result in fatigue fractures, no evidence of pitting corrosion was found and only surface corrosion was present. The liberation of the two stage 3 compressor blades led to their ingestion within the remaining compressor stages, resulting in the total loss of engine power in flight.
The engine maintenance manual contained provisions for more frequent inspections when the engine is operating in an erosive and/or corrosive environment, such as where the accident operator was located. A caution within the 300-hour inspection table stated that the inspection must not exceed 300 hours or 12 months for coated compressor wheels, including the accident engine’s stage 2-3 compressor wheel. The engine logbook showed that a 300-hour engine inspection was completed about 3 years and 800 flight hours before the accident. Paperwork associated with the two most recent inspections, conducted by the accident operator about 11 months and 1 month before the accident, respectively, did not indicate that the 300-hour inspection had been performed. Had maintenance personnel completed the 300-hour inspection of the compressor case halves, blades, and vanes within the recommended 12-month interval, the presence of corrosion or damage to the plastic coating could have been detected and addressed.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to fatigue failure of two of the stage 3 compressor blades. Contributing to the failure of the compressor blades was the failure of maintenance personnel to inspect the compressor at the recommended interval for operation in corrosive environments.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21FA130
- Event ID
- 20210216102634
- Case number
- ERA21FA130
- 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: 5eefb2ee4bc55e3976e6d47c5e73c61a14743a5e23d67355b05358e91908afd1; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:25:23.324Z.