ATL90FA100 · Bell 205A-1
Heli Jet Bell 205A-1 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90FA100
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Bell 205A-1
- Aircraft type
- Bell 205
- 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
- N67HJ
- Operator
- Heli Jet
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Rotor system, main rotor hub pillow block › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER WAS BEING USED FOR LOGGING USING AN EXTERNAL LIFT LONG LINE. A LOAD OF LOGS WAS RETURNED TO THE LOGGING LANE BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO HEAVY. AS THE HELICOPTER WAS BROUGHT TO A HOVER, & THE LOAD PICKLED, THE GROUND CREW OBSERVED THAT THE HELIOCPTER BECAME UNCONTROLLABLE. THE HELICOPTER NOSE PITCHED UP, IT ROLLED LEFT, & FELL TO THE GROUND FROM ABOUT 200 FEET. EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT NONE OF THE MAIN ROTOR PILLOW BLOCK BOLTS WERE PRESENT. DAMAGE TO THE MAIN ROTOR WAS CONSISTENT WITH A FAILURE OF ONE OF THE BOLTS, IN-FLIGHT, WHICH RESULTED IN SEPARATION OF THE MAIN ROTOR FROM THE MAST. LABORATORY EXAM OF THE MAIN ROTOR REVEALED THAT MFGRS OVERHAUL PROCEDURES WERE NOT FOLLOWED WHICH PROBABLY ALLOWED CORROSION OF THE BOLTS TO OCCUR. THE PROCEDURES WERE CHANGED TO PRECLUDE RE-USE OF PILLOW BLOCK BOLTS DURING OVERHAUL.
Probable cause
THE IN-FLIGHT SEPARATION OF THE MAIN ROTOR BECAUSE OF THE FAILURE OF A PILLOW BLOCK BOLT, AND THE FAILURE OF THE OPERATOR/REPAIR STATION TO FOLLOW THE OVERHAUL PROCEDURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90FA100
- Event ID
- 20001212X22848
- Case number
- ATL90FA100
- 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: 3c30f068a064611cdd5d1ca1cf329da8a464dac514c8dbf56feffee5191ee1a8; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:46:16.275Z.