MIA95LA084 · Bell 206L
Bell 206L · Accident: ditching during an uncontrolled descent
From Miami Seaplane Base (X44) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95LA084
- 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
- General aviation
- 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 206L
- 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
- N164BH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami Seaplane Base (X44), FLTo not recorded
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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
- Ditching
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Descent, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that while maneuvering at 250-300 feet, video taping a boat, he heard three dull thumps and the helicopter began to settle and the engine appeared to lose power. He lowered collective and nosed over. The engine power seemed low and he elected to land on the water. Postcrash examination of the aircraft structure, aircraft systems, flight controls, engine assembly, and all engine controls revealed no evidence to indicate precrash failure or malfunction. Uncontaminated Jet-A fuel was found in the airframe and engine fuel systems. About 2 minutes of audio information from the video camera that was being used by the passenger-photographer on the helicopter was subjected to frequency analysis. This analysis showed the engine N-1 speed was steady at 92% until 6.99 seconds before water impact when it decreased steadily to flight idle. Rotor speed remained steady at 99.8% until the N-1 speed began to decrease to idle. Rotor speed then dropped to 92.3% and the low rotor warning horn activated at 96.3% rotor speed. No thumps as reported by the pilot could be heard.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE ENGINE POWER WHILE MANEUVERING, HIS FAILURE TO TAKE REMEDIAL ACTION TO RECOVER FROM THE RESULTING DESCENT, AND HIS DECISION TO MAKE A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING ON THE WATER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95LA084
- Event ID
- 20001207X03160
- Case number
- MIA95LA084
- 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: e3ac3ebabdc87d266d9acff900aa48ebfaeafd1c77480ae4f1303851dcfe72a0; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:11:19.306Z.