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Atlas / NTSB / FTW90FA069

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event FTW90FA069

1990-02-13 BURLINGTON, North Carolina, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N110LT

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON 206L-1

Year of manufacture

1981 · 9 years old at event

TCDS

H2SW · BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON CANADA LTD

Engine

ALLISON 250-C28 SER (500 hp)

Seats / Engines

7 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20040305

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A02D3F

Registrant of record

LT AVIATION LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE DOUBLE ENGINE POWER LOSS DUE TO FUEL STARVATION, THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW PROCEDURES AND DIRECTIVES BY NOT ENGAGING THE RIGHT FUEL TRANSFER PUMP, AND THE INADVERTENT STALL DURING THE FORCED LANDING APPROACH. A FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO REFUEL BEFORE ADEQUATE FUEL RESERVES WERE EXHAUSTED.

Factual narrative

THE PILOT TRANSMITTED ON UNICOM THAT HE WAS ON FINAL FOR 24. FOLLOWING A DOUBLE FUEL STARVATION POWER LOSS THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED NOSE LOW WITH TREES AND TERRAIN ABOUT 2.6 MILES FROM RUNWAY 24. LAST FUELING OCCURRED ON THE PREVIOUS DAY AT ALBERMARLE, NC, THE PILOT'S PRIMARY SOURCE OF FUEL, 50 MILES FROM BURLINGTON. THE FLIGHT PROCEEDED TO BURLINGTON, TETERBORO, AND WAS RETURNING TO BURLINGTON. TOTAL ESTIMATED FLIGHT TIME WAS 4 HOURS 32 MINUTES. FUEL BURN WAS CALCULATED TO BE 361 GALLONS. USABLE FUEL WAS 384 GALLONS AND 24 GALLONS WERE RECOVERED FROM THE RIGHT CENTER TANK. IF THE FUEL TRANSFER PUMP DOES NOT OPERATE 28 GALLONS WILL BE UNUSABLE. THAT PUMP WAS FOUND IN THE OFF POSITION. NO FUEL SPILLAGE OCCURRED AT THE SCENE. ON 2/8/90 THE PILOT PURCHASED 361 GALLONS OF FUEL FOR N110LT. LOWER FUEL PRICES AT THE FAVORED LOCATION WERE THE PILOT'S REASON FOR FUELING THERE. EXAMINATION OF ENGINES, PROPELLERS, FUEL PUMPS, AND OTHER RELATIVE COMPONENTS DID NOT REVEAL ANY SIGNIFICANT DISCREPANCY. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1990_FTW90FA069.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall, fuel starvation). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗