FTW98LA274 · Bell 206L4
Bell 206L4 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA274
- 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 206L4
- 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
- N8094L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 in 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
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor lost control of the helicopter while demonstrating the technique for recovering from a loss of tail rotor effectiveness while hovering over a helipad. After assuming the controls for the demonstration, the instructor noticed that the RPM was set too low, at 99 percent. The instructor elected to 'beep up' the RPM by stabilizing the cyclic with his left hand and 'beeping' the RPM with the right thumb. He was unsuccessful in beeping the RPM up on 2 attempts. On his last attempt, while manipulating the cyclic lever with his left hand and the RPM switch with the thumb of his right hand, and keeping his eyes on the engine tachometer, the helicopter assumed a nose high attitude while drifting backwards. The flight instructor was not able to recover the helicopter in time to avoid impact with the ground. The winds at the time of the accidents were reported from the south at 27 knots.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain control of the helicopter while attempting to increase the engine RPM while hovering. Factors were the prevailing high winds and the instructor's diverted attention.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA274
- Event ID
- 20001211X10318
- Case number
- FTW98LA274
- 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: a52f1071ddf6599460d059cb9a24a6a19cd9cb8f07979d8ae49525c5f9ced610; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:39:12.438Z.