CHI95LA335 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA335
- 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 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
- N28SJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Lowering of collective, abrupt
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID HE WAS DEMONSTRATING MANEUVERS OVER TALL GRASS NEAR A HILL. A TAIL WIND OF FIVE TO TEN KNOTS WAS PRESENT. HE THOUGHT THE HELICOPTER'S TAIL STINGER STRUCK THE HILL WHILE OPERATING AT 110% TORQUE. THE PILOT SAID HE OVER CONTROLLED THE COLLECTIVE WHEN HE REDUCED TORQUE. THE PILOT SAID THE HELICOPTER DESCENDED RAPIDLY AFTER HE REDUCED THE TORQUE, STRIKING THE GROUND AND ROLLING ONTO ITS LEFT SIDE. DURING TRAINING, THE MANUFACTURER'S INSTRUCTOR PILOTS HAD STRONGLY EMPHASIZED TO THE PILOT THE IMPORTANCE OF STAYING BELOW MAXIMUM TORQUE. THE PILOT STATED THIS STRONG EMPHASIS RESULTED IN HIS REDUCING THE COLLECTIVE RAPIDLY AND ULTIMATELY THE HARD COLLISION WITH TERRAIN.
Probable cause
The pilot not maintaining adequate terrain clearance during his maneuvering exercise and his abrupt lowering of the collective. A factor associated with the accident was the pilot's lack of experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA335
- Event ID
- 20001207X04471
- Case number
- CHI95LA335
- 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: af4792f51df852dce2c4154d9e63dd629601b646894b22dd61b83bb72baff7bc; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:03:33.622Z.