Offshore Logistics Bell 206L-1 accident
Bell 206L-1 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From GALVESTON 313, GM to Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA114
- 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
- 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
- N5829D
- Operator
- Offshore Logistics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From GALVESTON 313, GMTo Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS), Galveston, TX
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, encountered
- Pilot in command › Visual/aural detection
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an offshore flight in the Gulf Of Mexico, approximately 3 nautical miles from San Luis Pass, the helicopter encountered low ceilings and low visibilities. The pilot began to slow the helicopter, and descended to approximately 50 above the water. He started a right turn to reverse direction while continuing to slow down. While in the turn, 'the aircraft began to vibrate and [he] recognized it as the transverse flow effect.' Due to the lack of resolution of the water, the pilot was having difficulty determining his exact altitude. He 'immediately applied collective and forward left cyclic to level the aircraft. The vibrations accelerated and the aircraft began an uncommanded turn to the right.' He followed the turn with cyclic and allowed the aircraft to descend. He rolled off the throttle, and the spin stopped. Before the pilot could inflate the floats, the helicopter impacted the water, rolled over onto its right side and subsequently sank. The raft was recovered from the helicopter, and the pilot and passengers floated in dense fog for about 3 1/2 hours before washing ashore at Surfside Beach.
Probable cause
The pilot's encounter with instrument meteorological conditions, and his subsequent loss of aircraft control due to the loss of visual cues to detect his height above the water. Factors were the low ceilings and fog, and the loss of tail rotor effectiveness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA114
- Event ID
- 20001208X07529
- Case number
- FTW97LA114
- 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: 96ae25976d00253856ec44eaced5f818682ba7d99e90969f0e427c4f657ef926; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:41:26.005Z.