CHI00LA132 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Cherry Capital Airport (TVC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA132
- 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
- N9TD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cherry Capital Airport (TVC), Traverse City, MITo 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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
- Pilot in command › Loss of tail rotor effectiveness, encountered
- Pilot in command › Translational lift, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was destroyed following a loss of tail rotor effectiveness while landing. After losing tail rotor effectiveness, the pilot was able to land the helicopter in a field amongst pine trees. The main rotor stuck the trees and the helicopter rolled over on its right side. A fire erupted and the helicopter was consumed. The pilot said that, as he approached the landing area, the helicopter was '...about 250 pounds below max[imum] gross weight of 3,200 pounds.' The pilot stated that he decided to abort the landing and he, '...began a power pull to 100 percent torque and a transition to forward flight. The helicopter immediately began a rapidly accelerating yaw to the right. He said that he, '...believed [he] still had a functioning tail rotor, but that it may have entered a 'loss of tail rotor effectiveness' state and need only be regained.' The pilot also stated that, 'the 'low rotor RPM' warning light and horn began to come on with each pull of the collective....' A Federal Aviation Advisory Circular states that a, 'loss of translational lift results in increased power demand and additional anti-torque requirements.' The AC also states that, 'When operating at or near maximum power, this increased power demand could result in a decrease in rotor rpm ... Any reduction in the translational lift will result in an increase in power demand and anti-torque requirements.'
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain translational lift following an aborted landing and the loss of tail rotor effectiveness encountered by the pilot. Factors to the accident were the low rotor rpm and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA132
- Event ID
- 20001212X20953
- Case number
- CHI00LA132
- 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: d433915c3c595893d0d4c7df6656a57835f12ac12980a9e1ddb300b79c2cc339; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:38:16.800Z.