SEA97LA015 · Bell 206B-3
Bell 206B-3 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS) to Sheridan County Airport (SHR)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA015
- 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-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
- N2762G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport (RKS), Rock Springs, WYTo Sheridan County Airport (SHR), Sheridan, WY
- 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 · 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the helicopter's engine flamed out, and he made an autorotation to a county road. During a slide-on landing, the right skid gear broke, and the helicopter rolled over on its right side. The pilot noted that he did not recall an audio warning, and the rpm had bled down before landing. He stated that he had made two earlier precautionary landings during the flight, due to the flight being conducted in visible precipitation. In both instances, he stated that he found no evidence of ice or snow buildup in the intake system. The engine was later removed and tested in a test cell, where it functioned normally. Sufficient fuel was found on board the helicopter. FAA inspectors noted that the loss of power occurred at an airspeed and altitude that may have precluded a successful forced landing.
Probable cause
loss of power for undetermined reason(s). A factor relating to the accident was: the pilot was operating outside height/velocity curve parameters, when the loss of power occurred.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA015
- Event ID
- 20001208X06980
- Case number
- SEA97LA015
- 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: f5618e51f3e9d788e7124bf9775d3a3a4d206db9c07b1624df36540d5b5c5752; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:55:59.513Z.