Offshore Logistics Bell 206L-4 accident
Bell 206L-4 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 335 · GM to 7R4 · INTRACOASTAL, LA
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA116
- 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
- 5 · 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 206L-4
- 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
- N172AL
- Operator
- Offshore Logistics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 335 · GMTo 7R4 · INTRACOASTAL, LA
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
AT 1445 CST ON 2/14/95, THE HELICOPTER TOOK OFF ON A FLIGHT FROM AN OFF-SHORE PLATFORM IN THE GULF OF MEXICO TO INTERCOASTAL CITY, LA. DURING THE FLIGHT, THE PILOT MADE SEVERAL POSITION REPORTS WITH THE LAST ONE BEING 32 MILES SOUTH OF INTERCOASTAL CITY. AT 1534, HE MADE A SERIES OF MAYDAY TRANSMISSIONS INDICATING INADVERTENT FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC). THE HELICOPTER, HOWEVER, WAS NOT CERTIFICATED FOR FLIGHT IN IMC. WHEN THE HELICOPTER DID N0T ARRIVE, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED, BUT SEARCH AND RESCUE EFFORTS WERE HAMPERED UNTIL 2/19/95 BY FOG AND IFR CEILINGS. PIECES OF THE HELICOPTER WERE FOUND WITH INDICATIONS THAT IT HAD IMPACTED THE WATER. ALSO, THE BODIES OF 4 OCCUPANTS WERE RECOVERED, BUT 1 OCCUPANT WAS NOT FOUND AND WAS PRESUMED TO HAVE BEEN FATALLY INJURED. LOW CEILINGS AND FOG PREVAILED ALONG THE GULF OF MEXICO AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. ON 11/18/94, THE PILOT HAD SATISFACTORILY COMPLETED A VFR ONLY FLIGHT CHECK, INCLUDING EMERGENCY VERTICAL HELICOPTER INSTRUMENT RECOVERY PROCEDURES. COMPANY RECORDS INDICATED HE HAD 0.20 HOUR OF INSTRUMENT HOOD TIME DURING THE PREVIOUS 6 MONTHS. BEFORE TAKEOFF, OTHER COMPANY PILOTS ADVISED THE ACCIDENT PILOT THAT WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE DETERIORATING AND VARIED FROM COMPANY MINIMUMS (500 FOOT CEILING AND 3 MILES VISIBILITY) TO OBSCURED SKIES WITH VISIBILITY LESS THAN 2 MILES IN FOG. HE ALSO ACKNOWLEDGED TO OTHER PILOTS THAT WEATHER ON THE PLATFORM WAS DETERIORATING AND THAT HE WAS DEPARTING.
Probable cause
INADVERTENT FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE HELICOPTER AFTER BECOMING SPATIALLY DISORIENTED. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND THE PILOT'S LACK OF RECENT INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA116
- Event ID
- 20001207X02955
- Case number
- FTW95FA116
- 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: investigation status. 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: cf5afeee31d0469d823464cefd2b3bfb5af5d412f594b57d7afdf5668a8f76d6; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:43:39.605Z.