Horizon Helicopters Bell 206B accident
Bell 206B · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
From Matagorda, TX (no airport) to GM (no airport)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA131
- 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
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N35WH
- Operator
- Horizon Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Matagorda, TX (no airport)To GM (no airport)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Clearance, not maintained
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
An offshore oil platform worker was seriously injured when he walked into a helicopter's turning tail rotor blades. According to the pilot, he landed the helicopter on the platform with the tail rotor over a stairwell in order to land into the wind and avoid a crane operating on the platform. The helicopter was still 'light on the skids,' and he began to reposition the helicopter so the tail rotor would not be over the stairwell. Simultaneously, the rear passenger began to exit the helicopter without receiving authorization. The pilot terminated the repositioning by lowering the collective and rolling the throttle to the idle position. A few seconds had elapsed when the pilot felt a 'nick in the pedals.' Subsequently, one of the passengers notified the pilot that someone had walked into the tail rotor blades. The helicopter was not damaged. According to the passengers, the pilot never indicated to them that he intended to reposition the helicopter. Both passengers exited the helicopter upon hearing the engine power 'spool down.' The front seat passenger was helping the other passenger unload cargo from the helicopter and observed the worker come up the steps into the turning blades.
Probable cause
The failure of the platform worker to maintain clearance with the turning tail rotor blades. A factor was the inadequate coordination between the pilot and the passengers pertaining to procedures for disembarking from the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA131
- Event ID
- 20001205X00476
- Case number
- FTW99LA131
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, damage. 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: 6fef0948ea29fe7f23bf55eb60036bd83b0197618a04b7d914cc1c41c293b3f1; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:56:53.710Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N35WH; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.