Houston Helicopter Bell 206L-1 accident
Bell 206L-1 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From GI82 · GRAND ISLAND 82, GM to 1R5 · Cameron, LA
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90LA096
- 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 206L-1
- 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
- N1071A
- Operator
- Houston Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From GI82 · GRAND ISLAND 82, GMTo 1R5 · Cameron, LA
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Compressor assembly › Failure, total
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
DURING A FLIGHT OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO, THE HELICOPTER HAD A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. BEFORE TOUCHDOWN, THE PILOT DEPLOYED THE FLOATS. THE LANDING WAS HARD ENOUGH FOR ONE OF THE PASSENGERS TO RECEIVE SERIOUS INJURIES. SOMETIME AFTER THE PILOT AND PASSENGERS WERE RESCUED, THE HELICOPTER ROLLED OVER IN THE GLASSY, SMOOTH, WATER. TEARDOWN OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT THE SPUR ADAPTER GEAR SHAFT HAD LOST ITS HARDNESS, AND THAT EVIDENCE OF FATIGUE WAS PRESENT IN THE CAMPONENTS. IT WAS NOT DETERMINED WHAT THE CYCLIC VALUE OF THE FATIGUE CRACKS WERE, HOWEVER, THE POINT OF ORIGIN WAS DETERMINED TO BE A RUBBED AREA ON THE SPUR ADAPTER GEAR SHAFT.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF CONTINUITY IN THE COMPRESSOR SECTION OF THE ENGINE DUE TO A FATIQUE FAILURE OF THE SPUR ADAPTER GEAR SHAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90LA096
- Event ID
- 20001212X22926
- Case number
- FTW90LA096
- 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, damage. 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: fb65e6388883fb155773780af222a6d1732559718f27b8e4521e8bd96d7c6fef; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:03:13.171Z.