Petroleum Helicopters Bell B 206B III accident
Bell B 206B III · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From an unrecorded airport to MISS CANYON 194, GM (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW91FA031
- 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
- 3 · 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 B 206B III
- Aircraft type
- Bell B-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
- N2269V
- Operator
- Petroleum Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo MISS CANYON 194, GM (no airport)
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT DISAPPEARED ON A REVENUE FLIGHT FROM ONE OFFSHORE PLATFORM TO ANOTHER. THERE WERE NO RADIO CALLS TO INDICATE THAT THE FLIGHT HAD ENCOUNTERED DIFFICULTIES. AN AIR SEARCH FOUND TWO OF THE THREE BODIES AND ASSORTED PIECES OF WRECKAGE ABOUT TWO MILES FROM THE DEPARTURE PLATFORM. NONE OF THE DRIVE TRAIN OR THE INSTRUMENTATION WAS RECOVERED. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE INDICATED THAT THE AIRCRAFT HAD IMPACTED THE WATER AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED IN AN UNCONTROLLED ATTITUDE. HOWEVER, THE LIMITED AMOUNT OF RECOVERED WRECKAGE PRECLUDED A DEFINITE DETERMINATION AS TO THE NATURE OF THE ACCIDENT. THE WEATHER WAS CHARACTERIZED BY INDEFINITE 200 TO 400 FOOT CEILINGS, OBSCURED SKIES, AND 1 TO 1.5 MILES VISIBILITY IN LIGHT RAIN AND FOG WITH A TWO DEGREE TEMP/DEW POINT SPREAD. PRIOR TO DEPARTURE, THE INSTRUMENT-RATED PILOT HAD RELATED TO THE CREW CHIEF THAT IF THE WEATHER BECAME TOO BAD HE WOULD TURN AROUND AND RETURN TO THE DEPARTURE PLATFORM.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS SHORTLY AFTER DEPARTURE. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE RESTRICTIONS TO VISIBILITY THAT EXISTED AT THE TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW91FA031
- Event ID
- 20001212X16316
- Case number
- FTW91FA031
- 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: e569646709bfc7d545fc429038812cc1150d93450b2506e076fa425eb89c5292; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:05:00.436Z.