FTW97LA364 · Bell 206B2
Bell 206B2 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Flying H Ranch Airport (T29) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA364
- 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 206B2
- 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
- N59396
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying H Ranch Airport (T29), Pearland, TXTo 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- External load cable/hook › Entangled
- Pilot in command › Dynamic rollover, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was being used to perform sling load operations, transporting water in a 100 gallon bambi bucket suspended by a 100 foot long line. During the operation, the helicopter impacted in a marshy area at a high rate of descent with very low forward speed approximately 100 feet west of his water pick up point. There were no reported eyewitnesses to the accident. A ground impression (corresponding to the water bucket) was found approximately 200 feet to the west of the resting place of the main wreckage. The 3 to 5 foot tall grass on the southern portion of the hole made by the water bucket was found pushed or laid back in a southerly direction. Deep impressions were found aft of the toe of the left skid tube (at the attaching point where it attaches to the crosstube), which corresponded to the steel cable that was being used in conjunction with the external load. No similar impressions were found on the other skid or crosstube assemblies. No evidence of pre-impact mechanical failure or malfunction was found within the helicopter or related components. The commercial pilot had accumulated a total of 4 hours operating with a 100 foot sling.
Probable cause
the pilot's inability to maintain control of the helicopter after encountering a dynamic rollover due to entanglement of the external load cable with the left landing gear skid.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA364
- Event ID
- 20001208X08857
- Case number
- FTW97LA364
- 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: 7490488087766aaf5e43f6a8a2eecff8803bbf9b506f222c02d0d73c3669067d; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:48:04.266Z.