FTW97LA326 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Cameron, LA (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA326
- 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
- N7929J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cameron, LA (no airport)To 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 drive system, tail rotor drive shaft coupling › Debonded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an external load operation, the pilot was hovering the helicopter at about 60 feet above the boat, when the helicopter began to 'spin' to the right. He 'rolled off the throttle' and the spin stopped. He then maneuvered the helicopter to the right as it descended in an effort to clear the boat; however, the main rotor blades struck the front of the boat. Subsequently, the helicopter settled into the water and sank. Examination of the tail rotor drive system revealed that the #5 tail rotor drive shaft segment P/N 206-040-931-9 had separated at the bonded joint between the shaft tube and the flange fitting. Examination of this tail rotor drive segment by a metallurgist revealed that the separated joint revealed evidence of pitting which was indicative of plastic blast media impingement and the remaining adhesive had the consistency of powder/talc with no apparent structural integrity. According to the metallurgist the 'blast media impingement may effectively compromise the moisture barrier at the joint and allow the moist chloride environment to invade the joint and chemically degrade the adhesive.' Blast media impingement is not approved by Bell Helicopter.
Probable cause
The disconnect of the #5 tail rotor drive segment due to the debonding of the joint between the shaft tube and the flange fitting. Factors were the improper bead blasting of the tail rotor drive segment by an unknown maintenance personnel, and the lack of altitude and suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA326
- Event ID
- 20001208X08637
- Case number
- FTW97LA326
- 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: 884c3f8dd5fe791e2d60356c6bafb1ed1925e334bebf169171575af67e721434; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:46:51.669Z.