1977 Encino helicopter crash
KNBC News Bell 206B · Pilot error
From Burbank, CA to Santa Barbara & Ret
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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 206B
- 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
- N4TV
- Operator
- KNBC News
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burbank, CATo Santa Barbara & Ret
- 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 (other)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Engine failure or malfunction
- 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
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Fuel exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Improper in-flight decisions or planning
- Pilot in command › Improper operation of flight controls
- Pilot in command › Mismanagement of fuel
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On August 1, 1977, a Bell 206 news helicopter piloted by Francis Gary Powers ran out of fuel and crashed into a field near Encino, Los Angeles, California, killing Powers and the aircraft's only passenger, cameraman George Spears.
Accident
The Bell 206 JetRanger was operating under Federal Aviation Regulation Part 91 on a noncommercial flight and departed Hollywood Burbank Airport in Burbank on the morning of August 1, 1977, to provide aerial coverage and record video after a wildfire in Santa Barbara, 86 nmi to the west. At approximately 12:25 pm PDT, Powers contacted KNBC and stated he had completed gathering footage, was returning to Burbank, and believed he had enough fuel for the return trip. A few minutes later, Powers radioed the control tower at Van Nuys Airport requesting clearance to land there due to low fuel; permission was granted, but the aircraft failed to arrive.
The helicopter was now at 800 ft above ground level (AGL) and almost out of fuel. Realizing he would not make the airport, Powers began searching for a spot to land in the heavily built-up area. At 12:35 pm, Powers pointed the aircraft towards the Sepulveda Dam Recreational Area and prepared to auto-rotate down to an open area. The Bell 206 has superior autorotation characteristics, but as he descended, it is surmised that Powers saw a group of teenagers playing on a baseball diamond and made an abrupt maneuver to avoid them. Powers' last radio transmission was "TV four just lost –". At approximately 50 ft AGL, the tail rotor fell off and Powers was ejected from the helicopter. At 12:36 pm, the aircraft hit the ground about 50 yd from where the boys were playing, gouged a trench 20 ft long in the earth, and flipped upside-down. Powers and Spears were both killed, but nobody on the ground was injured.
Investigation and cause
Aftermath and investigation
The helicopter was completely destroyed during the crash. When firefighters arrived, they removed the helicopter's smoking battery from the fuselage for safety. The wreckage was moved to the Wayne Airframe Aviation Company in Van Nuys. A video recorder and four video cassettes were found inside the helicopter. The investigators hoped the tapes might have clues to the reason for the crash but apparently the recorder had not been operating at the time of the incident. The aircraft had not been equipped with a flight data recorder (FDR) or a cockpit voice recorder (CVR).
During the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation, no evidence of failure or malfunction of the aircraft or any of its systems prior to the crash was found. Further examination of the engine found approximately five fluid ounces of jet fuel in the entire fuel system and that the engine had flamed out due to fuel starvation. The final report from the NTSB lists the probable causes as improper in-flight decisions and mismanagement of fuel by the pilot in command which led to fuel exhaustion. Also listed was improper operation of flight controls during the power-off autorotation.
According to one report, Powers had reported that the helicopter's fuel gauge was faulty. The improperly operating fuel gauge would indicate empty when the fuel tank contained enough fuel for 30 minutes flying time. It has been alleged the gauge was repaired to function correctly without Powers being notified. This is a possible explanation why an experienced pilot such as Powers could have run out of fuel.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1977 Encino helicopter crash” (revision 1375331917, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
KNBC NEWS TELECOPTER
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: 1977 Encino helicopter crash
- Article
- 1977 Encino helicopter crash
- Revision
- 1375331917 · 2026-09-17 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q22093755
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19770801P068970
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "1977 Encino helicopter crash" (page 48722105, revision 1375331917); merged with NTSB case NTSB19770801P068970 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19770801P068970: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19770801P068970
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19770801P068970: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19770801P068970: operated under Part 91: General aviation (other)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19770801P068970: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19770801P068970: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1977 Encino helicopter crash" and NTSB case NTSB19770801P068970, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.