Era Aviation Bell 206B accident
Bell 206B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Juneau International Airport (JNU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA072
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N265AH
- Operator
- Era Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Juneau International Airport (JNU)To 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 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
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The on-demand air taxi pilot landed the helicopter in a confined area on a narrow dirt road in close proximity to boulders and other obstructions. After the passengers had boarded, the pilot lifted the helicopter to a hover. In the process of liftoff, the lift skid contacted a boulder, and the pilot lost control of the helicopter. The helicopter struck terrain, and came to rest against a commercial building.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of an unsuitable landing/takeoff area, and his failure to maintain clearance from terrain. Factors associated with the accident are the confined/congested landing/takeoff area, and rocks/boulders in the takeoff area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA072
- Event ID
- 20001212X18911
- Case number
- ANC99LA072
- 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: be86a8a8d742f2a6f4b8702cedd6350a8c0741ba8e8af7e946be0a5c0d745fcc; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:55:59.994Z.