PHI Bell 206-L3 accident
Bell 206-L3 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while standing
From an unrecorded airport to Boothville, LA (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA240
- 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 206-L3
- 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
- N6610E
- Operator
- PHI
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Boothville, LA (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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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 on ground/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 › Directional control, not maintained
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The pilot lost directional control of the helicopter while attempting to takeoff from an offshore oil platform. The pilot stated that the helicopter was facing downwind as he prepared to takeoff. He advanced the throttle, and about full power, the helicopter began sliding across the platform. He reduced the throttle, and the helicopter stopped for a few seconds, and then started sliding again. The helicopter turned 180 degrees to the left, into the wind, and then contacted the safety area around the perimeter of the helipad. The pilot said he applied throttle and collective to takeoff, but the helicopter began bouncing on the edge of the helipad, and then slid over the edge, and came to rest on the lower deck of the platform. The pilot reported that the wind was from the east-southeast at 25 knots. Postaccident inspection disclosed flight control continuity to the cyclic, collective, and tail rotor systems.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the helicopter. A factor was the tailwind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA240
- Event ID
- 20001212X19530
- Case number
- FTW99LA240
- 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: a3c7e1bec730bf26fb9a3af8084c08f8f2173acb4be25ec78dc2138031297781; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:53:45.255Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N6610E; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.