NYC96LA167 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Steven A. Bean Municipal Airport (8B0) to Pittsfield Municipal Airport (2B7)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA167
- 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
- N9913K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Steven A. Bean Municipal Airport (8B0), RANGELEY, METo Pittsfield Municipal Airport (2B7), Pittsfield, ME
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Loss of tail rotor effectiveness, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Starks, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a powerline patrol, and at the request of the observer(s), he maneuvered the helicopter so they could take another look at a tower. According to the pilot, he was flying west, and the wind was from the west to northwest at 10 knots with gusts from 15 to 20 knots. He inadvertently slowed to 20 knots. As the pilot applied power and left pedal, the helicopter started a right rotation. He was unable to recover directional control, and was forced to autorotate into unsuitable terrain. The tail rotor struck a tree during descent. During the landing, the skids were driven into the fuselage. According to a chart in the flight manual, the critical wind azimuth area was from 050 degrees to 210 degrees.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper decision to operate at slow airspeed, and close to the critical relative wind azimuth area in gusty, variable winds, which resulted in an inadvertent loss of tail rotor effectiveness. The gusty crosswind and lack of a suitable terrain for a landing were related factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA167
- Event ID
- 20001208X06604
- Case number
- NYC96LA167
- 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: aa9e7c366d011af8dbb2addaa30377b6ee68ab4ee446ff5182b7b324a8ef0984; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:29:59.981Z.