LAX95FA339 · Bell 206L-1
HeliStream Bell 206L-1 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From San Diego International Airport (SAN) to John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95FA339
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Bell 206L-1
- 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
- N700TH
- Operator
- Helistream
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Diego International Airport (SAN), San Diego, CATo John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), ORANGE COUNTY, CA
- 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 · 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Radar assistance to VFR aircraft, improper
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, intentional
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Irvine, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was flying the prototype 2-engine Bell 206L1 back to base from a series of demonstration flights. En route he obtained the current destination weather and forecast conditions from Flight Watch. The current weather was given as 800 scattered with 6 miles, and the forecast called for clear conditions until 2300, followed by 800 overcast with 3 miles. As the flight neared the accident site the pilot was over a broken to overcast layer. Calculations showed the helicopter had about 43 minutes of fuel remaining at that point. The pilot contacted the MCAS El Toro air traffic control tower about 10 miles east at 2,000 feet msl. He told the military controller, 'I need to look for a hole', and the controller provided a suggested heading . Shortly thereafter, the pilot inquired 'Is it o.k. to descend here?' The controller stated 'Just fine, descend right there sir.' The pilot asked the controller what his minimum altitude was at this location and was advised to standby. That was the last communication received from the helicopter. The helicopter was certified for instrument flight.
Probable cause
the pilot's intentional VFR flight into IMC conditions and failure to maintain an adequate terrain clearance altitude, and the local controller's improper use of ATC procedure/technique. Factors in the accident were the helicopter's low fuel state and lack of the required equipment for IFR flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95FA339
- Event ID
- 20001207X04514
- Case number
- LAX95FA339
- 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 1995-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 64cfc599a90de655ec1f1f782f5f162cd3658a509226e5350e325c8603f158e6; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:36:47.894Z.