LAX95TA171 · Bell 206-L4
Bell 206-L4 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (TRM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95TA171
- 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 206-L4
- 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
- N6197N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (TRM)To 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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(cfi) › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CFI WAS DEMONSTRATING A HOVERING AUTOROTATION TO TOUCHDOWN. THE HELICOPTER WAS EQUIPPED WITH FULL SKID SHOES, AND A QUARTERING HEADWIND OF 15 KNOTS, GUSTING TO 30 KNOTS, EXISTED. THE CFI APPLIED FULL UP COLLECTIVE TO CUSHION THE LANDING. THE TOUCHDOWN WAS SMOOTH, BUT THE HELICOPTER CAME TO AN ABRUPT STOP. WHEN THE CFI RETURNED TO THE PAD, HE NOTICED THAT THE TAILBOOM SKIN WAS WRINKLED. THE MANUFACTURER HAD ADDRESSED THE TAILBOOM WRINKLING IN AN OPERATIONAL SAFETY NOTICE (OSN) WHICH WAS INCORPORATED IN THE HELICOPTER FLIGHT MANUAL. THE OSN STATES THAT THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES RPM SHOULD NOT BE LESS THAN 70 PERCENT, AND THAT THE COLLECTIVE SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY LOWERED ON TOUCHDOWN.
Probable cause
The CFI's failure to follow the flight manual procedures by using full up collective during an autorotation landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95TA171
- Event ID
- 20001207X03330
- Case number
- LAX95TA171
- 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 1995-04-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6fe0be29a28c507aa2a3a136a8a06ab4ee61604ab1da20502180ea9842d7a6b2; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:00:30.252Z.