Wolfe Air Aviation Bell 206B accident
Bell 206B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR) to CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA079
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N2209P
- Operator
- Wolfe Air Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR), Burbank, CATo CA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission; Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REQUESTED AND RECEIVED A SPECIAL VFR CLEARANCE OUT OF THE CLASS C AIRSPACE AND PROCEEDED SOUTHBOUND FROM THE BURBANK AIRPORT. THE AIRPORT PREVAILING WEATHER WAS 300 FT BROKEN; VISIBILITY 2-1/2 MI WITH FOG AND LIGHT RAIN. THE HELICOPTER CONTINUED SOUTHBOUND UNTIL IT COLLIDED WITH HIGH VOLTAGE TRANSMISSION WIRES ABOUT 150 FT AGL. RADAR DATA SHOWED THAT THE HELICOPTER DID NOT CLIMB MORE THAN 300 FT ABOVE THE GROUND AFTER DEPARTURE. GROUND WITNESSES REPORTED THAT DUE THE PREVAILING RAIN SHOWERS, CLOUD OBSCURATION, AND A 1/4-MI VISIBILITY, THE HELICOPTER WAS BARELY DISTINGUISHABLE. THE HELICOPTER BECAME ENTANGLED WITH THE SECOND SET OF WIRES UNTIL THE MAIN ROTOR ASSEMBLY SEPARATED AND THEN IT PLUNGED TO THE GROUND. THE PILOT DID NOT OBTAIN A WEATHER BRIEFING FROM THE FSS, NOR FILE A FLIGHT PLAN. HE DID RECEIVE THE CURRENT ATIS BEFORE DEPARTING.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S AND OPERATOR'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW THEIR ESTABLISHED DISPATCH PROCEDURES, THE PILOT'S POOR JUDGMENT IN INITIATING THE FLIGHT, AND THE EXISTING WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA079
- Event ID
- 20001207X02876
- Case number
- LAX95FA079
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-01-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 39f1b573705e410c6adbccc88773b493efd5f82411e2074f7d90e8b6b56ee4d5; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:44:23.838Z.