Mobil Air Bell 206L-1/C-30P 206L-1/C-3 accident
Bell 206L-1/C-30P 206L-1/C-3 · Accident: rotor failure/malfunction en route
From Mobil Heliport (5LA2) to SO. MARSH 243, GM
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA386
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 206L-1/C-30P 206L-1/C-3
- 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
- N2654
- Operator
- Mobil Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mobil Heliport (5LA2)To SO. MARSH 243, GM
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Rotor failure/malfunction
- 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
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Blade strike
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor control › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was in route to South Marsh 243C in the Gulf Of Mexico from Morgan City, Louisiana. Approximately 5 minutes into the flight, at an altitude of 500 feet AGL, 'a loud continuous, chattering and violent vibration started without warning.' During the emergency landing to a canal, about 50 feet above the trees, the vibration totally ceased; however, the helicopter began turning to the right. At this time the pilot initiated an autorotation and deployed the floats. The helicopter touched down on the water in a level attitude at 20 to 25 MPH, and the helicopter came to rest on its side. One tail rotor blade was sheared from the leading edge to the trailing edge at the outboard end. Scanning of the sheared area by energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDXA) revealed elements of lead and chromium in one area, and titanium, iron, nickel and chromium in another area. Examination of the area which contained the elements of lead and chromium with an optical microscope at 60X magnification, revealed particles of red paint within this area. The object that struck the tail rotor blade could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of tail rotor control as result of a tail rotor blade strike by an undetermined object. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA386
- Event ID
- 20001208X06732
- Case number
- FTW96LA386
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 064d213d38ed7a1f5113c5e3ad4f59f90b8c8ac989d189602e59dc340b20429e; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:46:36.595Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N2654; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.