SEA92FA045 · Bell 206B
Summit Helicopter Systems Bell 206B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while taxiing
From Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE) to Carbon County Regional Airport / Buck Davis Field (PUC)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA92FA045
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N5003U
- Operator
- Summit Helicopter Systems
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE), Eagle, COTo Carbon County Regional Airport / Buck Davis Field (PUC), Price, UT
- 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
- Taxi · aerial
- 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
- 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 › Descent, excessive
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED, 371 HOUR PILOT DEPARTED EAGLE, COLORADO, IN HIS BELL 206B HELICOPTER AFTER RECEIVING A VFR NOT RECOMMENDED UPDATE TO HIS WEATHER BRIEFING. WITNESSES ALONG THE ROUTE OF FLIGHT AND AT THE ACCIDENT SITE REPORTED FOG AND POOR VISIBILITY, PRECIPITATION, LOW CEILINGS, NIGHT CONDITIONS AND SNOW COVERED GROUND. THE PILOT INITIALLY REQUESTED THAT HIS WIFE MEET THE HELICOPTER AT A LOCATION SHORT OF THE DESTINATION BUT SUBSEQUENTLY DEPARTED THE ROADSIDE LANDING SITE AFTER RELAYING INSTRUCTIONS THROUGH HIS PASSENGER FOR HER TO POSITION HER VEHICLE BENEATH POWER LINES CROSSING THE HIGHWAY WHICH CONTINUED TO THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. ON SITE EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE SKIDS HAD SUSTAINED EXTENSIVE SHATTERING DAMAGE AND WERE CONFINED TO A SMALL LOCAL AREA ASSOCIATED WITH THE INITIAL GROUND IMPACT. THE TERRAIN AT THE GROUND IMPACT SITE WAS UNEVEN.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND AN EXCESSIVE RATE OF DESCENT. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE FOG, RAIN, LOW CEILINGS, NIGHT CONDITIONS, SNOW COVERED TERRAIN AND PILOT DISORIENTATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA92FA045
- Event ID
- 20001211X14180
- Case number
- SEA92FA045
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-02-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 970d8af74deeaff8b9739f12c618c4b5b85c1206799cb609ccdd28f82a713870; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:22:09.857Z.