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The suspicion is that a passenger's harness belt got looped around and then pulled the fuel cutoff handle, which is on the floor between the front seats. The pilot thought he was dealing with an engine failure and didn't notice the fuel handle until it was too late. Sort of surprised that it didn't register some kind of alert such as a "FUEL OFF" indicator but I don't know anything about helicopter instrumentation.

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It probably did, but the pilot didn't have time to do the engine restart procedure. Also when something like this happens if there's only you flying the plane you need to prioritize getting on the ground. In a plane, depending on altitude and where I was, I would land immediately or set up the most efficient glide based on what the manual says then do engine restart procedures.

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