US Helicopters Bell 206L-3 accident
Bell 206L-3 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Charlotte, NC (private airstrip) to Charlotte-Monroe Executive Airport (EQY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98FA080
- 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
- 5 · 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-3
- 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
- N96CW
- Operator
- US Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte, NC (private airstrip)To Charlotte-Monroe Executive Airport (EQY), Monroe, NC
- 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
- Wire, static
- 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 possible
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into adverse weather, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to US Helicopters, Inc., the pilot was conducting passenger transport from the Charlotte Motor Speedway to various destinations in the Charlotte area. The pilot was on his last trip of the day, and departed the Speedway with four passengers on board destined for the Monroe Airport. Prior to departing the Speedway, the pilot informed a co-worker that weather at the time was VFR with 3 miles visibility. According to the co-worker, the pilot had last reported that he was proceeding east along highway 74, about 0025. Witnesses, in the immediate area, said they observed the helicopter flying low, in fog, with its lights on. The report from the Monroe ASOS (Automatic Surface Observation System) located on Monroe Airport was 300 feet overcast sky condition, 1.75 miles visibility in mist. At about 0032 the helicopters skids contacted a high-tension static ground wire about 150 feet above the ground.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude while operating in adverse weather. A contributing factor was the incoming fog and high tension static wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98FA080
- Event ID
- 20001211X09984
- Case number
- ATL98FA080
- 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: f93b9ad93f0bcea2f64b2b9c8a7185c8c12f896d5daf6e5f4116474feaae7aaf; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:23:39.156Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operator. The NTSB narrative names the operator: "According to US Helicopters, Inc., the pilot was conducting passenger transport from the Charlotte Motor Speedway"