SEA98LA013 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA013
- 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
- N101LF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO), Hillsboro, ORTo 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
- 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 collision with object
- 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 › Maneuver, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was approaching a pick-up area for a load of Christmas trees. The approach was over a tree-lined ridge and down into a basin. The pilot reported that while decelerating, he heard a loud bang. Warning horns and lights went off as the helicopter turned to the left and rolled right, subsequently colliding with trees and terrain. A witness on the ground stated that as the helicopter was descending, the long line swung forward and straight up in front of the cabin. The main rotor blades instantly separated and the helicopter started to descend. The witness heard a loud screaming sound, then a loud explosion, and observed the helicopter come apart in mid-air. The cabin continued in the same direction that it was traveling and turned up-side down and collided with trees and terrain. The tail section separated and collided with terrain near where the witness was standing. Cable marks were found on one main rotor blade and one tail rotor blade. The load line itself was severed from the helicopter, and the load line hook displayed severe impact damage signatures.
Probable cause
Excessive deceleration of the helicopter by the pilot-in-command, resulting in an in-flight main rotor blade strike on the helicopter's external load line and subsequent main rotor separation. Downhill terrain which led to a descending approach to the pickup point was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA013
- Event ID
- 20001208X09245
- Case number
- SEA98LA013
- 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: c7d6b6e74f9d254cf7d6e17275f2923ad9d34e3696953934a61d092a5e68e492; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:12:39.524Z.