LAX97TA289 · Bell UH-1H
USDA Forest Service Bell UH-1H · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to NV
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's flight rules. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97TA289
- 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
- Government
- 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 UH-1H
- Aircraft type
- Bell UH-1
- 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
- N205DF
- Operator
- Usda / Forest Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NVTo NV
- 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
- Public Aircraft Narrative disagrees
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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 › Collective, improper use of
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The public-use helicopter was transporting fire fighting personnel to a nearby forest fire at a small lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The pilot said he calculated the allowable load for the hottest time of the day when he reported for work that morning. After dispatch for the fire mission, the pilot flew to the small lake where he determined that the area, 'appeared large enough to land and that the obstructions were fifty-foot tall trees.' He made an approach over the lake and landed on the beach and was told that they were no longer needed. The pilot said that as he lifted off from the lake edge he ran out of blade pitch and available power as he tried to climb above the trees and was forced to reverse direction. At the middle of the turn the aircraft began descending rapidly toward the water, and he attempted to accelerate the aircraft and pulled power until the rotor rpm began to droop. The helicopter settled into the lake with about 10 knots of forward airspeed. The pilot said the helicopter remained upright on the water with the skids immersed and a dropped main rotor rpm. The pilot reduced collective and recovered rpm with the intention of hovering the helicopter back to the beach area. After the rpm returned to normal, he increased collective, and the helicopter rolled to the right and sank inverted. Review of the cargo manifest, load calculation sheet, and hover ceiling chart show that the helicopter was about 800 pounds over the hover out of ground effect ceiling for the temperature and pressure altitude. The density altitude was computed to be approximately 9,500 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to attempt a takeoff in environmental conditions which exceeded the helicopter's performance capability, and his improper use of the collective, which caused a decay of the main rotor rpm, the collision with the lake, and the subsequent rollover. Factors in the accident were the high density altitude and the confined area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97TA289
- Event ID
- 20001208X08698
- Case number
- LAX97TA289
- 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: eb2d19263bab2ef15417681144741ef46fd2bf746c9dc35b3706937c3a1edd55; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:15:00.069Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operation. The narrative states "The public-use helicopter was transporting fire fighting personnel to a nearby forest fire" (operator USDA Forest Service); the flight was a public aircraft operation, not Part 91 general aviation.