FTW95FA308 · Bell 206-L3
Bell 206-L3 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Tradewind Airport (TDW) to UNK/NR (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA308
- 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
- 1 · 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-L3
- 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
- N111JA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tradewind Airport (TDW), Amarillo, TXTo UNK/NR (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 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
- 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
- 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 possible
- Weather condition › Dust devil/whirlwind
- Weather condition › Thunderstorm, outflow
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE NOTICED THUNDERSTORMS 'DEVELOPING RAPIDLY' TO THE LEFT OF HIS FLIGHT PATH; HOWEVER, 'THEY APPEARED TO BE AT A SAFE DISTANCE.' HE FURTHER REPORTED THAT, HE NOTICED DUST PICKING UP ON THE GROUND, ALONG WITH SOME DEBRIS, ABOUT 1/2 MILE AHEAD, AND TO THE LEFT OF HIS FLIGHT PATH. AFTER INITIATING A TURN TO THE RIGHT, AWAY FROM THE STORM AREA, HE 'COULD NOT CONTROL THE HELICOPTER', AND DOES NOT RECALL THE ENSUING GROUND IMPACT. DOPPLER RADAR IMAGES, FOR THE TIME AND AREA OF THE ACCIDENT, SHOW RAPIDLY DEVELOPING WEATHER ECHOES IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCIDENT SITE. ALSO, BASE VELOCITY DATA, AT THE APPROXIMATE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, SHOW A SIGNIFICANT THUNDERSTORM OUTFLOW BOUNDARY LOCATED JUST NORTHWEST OF THE ACCIDENT SITE. SEVERAL WITNESSES, IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCIDENT SITE, REPORTED HIGH WINDS AND TURBULENT CONDITIONS. ALL STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS, TAIL AND MAIN ROTOR DRIVE SYSTEMS, ENGINE COMPONENTS, AND FLIGHT CONTROLS, THAT WERE NOT DESTROYED BY IMPACT FORCES AND POSTIMPACT FIRE, DID NOT REVEAL EVIDENCE OF FAILURE PRIOR TO IMPACT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S LOSS OF CONTROL DUE TO AN ENCOUNTER WITH A DUST DEVIL/WHIRLWIND AND THE TURBULENCE AND HIGH WIND ASSOCIATED WITH THUNDERSTORM OUTFLOW.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA308
- Event ID
- 20001207X03933
- Case number
- FTW95FA308
- 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: 440f7d5feaa96a3281110f979552420cb0323d281ae4860003cc05fdd209d41d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:41:24.684Z.