IAD96FA107 · Bell 206B
Mid-Ohio Aviation Bell 206B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Salem Airpark Inc Airport (38D) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD96FA107
- 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
- 5 · 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
- N49578
- Operator
- Mid-Ohio Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salem Airpark Inc Airport (38D), OHTo 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 · hover out of ground effect
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 handling, improper
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Loss of tail rotor effectiveness, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses stated that they observed the helicopter hovering just above some 70 to 80 foot tall trees near the Little Beaver Creek. They said that the helicopter spun around slowly 3 to 4 times and that the main rotor was spinning slowly before it went behind the trees and crashed. The winds at the time were from 010 degrees at 6 knots. Examination of the wreckage found no evidence of pre-impact damage with the airframe, engine or flight controls, however the aircraft was over its gross weight limitations for hovering out of ground effect by 277.7 lbs. Examination of a Operations Safety Notice issued by Bell Helicopter on October 31, 1983, found that the pilot was operating in an environment conducive to loss of tail rotor effectiveness. The pilot's toxicological results were 194.000 mg/dl ethanol detected in blood and 274.000 mg/dl ethanol detected in urine.
Probable cause
The pilot's impairment of judgment and performance due to alcohol and the pilot's improper handling of the helicopter resulting in a loss of tail rotor effectiveness. A related factor was the pilot's disregard for the aircraft's weight and balance while hovering out of ground effect.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD96FA107
- Event ID
- 20001208X06249
- Case number
- IAD96FA107
- 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: 52eac5c478ad50ffb267e46e23b1f988e4fe65ea3a8b7db8a9e8206424748c45; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:17:14.855Z.