NYC88FA166 · Bell 206L-1
Fleet Helicopter Services Bell 206L-1 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From A7N · Manville, NJ to 63N · Coopersburg, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC88FA166
- 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
- 2 · 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 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
- N114FH
- Operator
- Fleet Helicopter Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From A7N · Manville, NJTo 63N · Coopersburg, PA
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- 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
- Rotorcraft flight control, swashplate assembly › Disengaged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT, GROUND WITNESSES OBSERVED THE HELICOPTER MAKE TWO VIOLENT ROLL MANEUVERS FOLLOWED BY AN IN-FLIGHT BREAKUP. AIRCRAFT WRECKAGE WAS SPREAD OVER AN AREA OF APPROXIMATELY 10 ACRES. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE COLLECTIVE IDLER LINK AND RETAINING PIN ASSEMBLY WERE MISSING AND THE LOWER ATTACHING STUD OF THE IDLER LINK SHOWED EVIDENCE OF FAILURE. THE STUD WAS BENT IN THE DIRECTION OPPOSITE TO THE DIRECTION OF ROTATION AND SHEARED NUT THREADS AND COTTER PIN REMAINS WERE FOUND IN THE STUD THREADS AND COTTER PIN HOLE, RESPECTIVELY. THE H-SHAPED IDLER LEVER THAT CONNECTS THE UPPER END OF THE IDLER LINK TO THE SWASHPLATE DRIVE COLLAR WAS FOUND ATTACHED TO THE COLLAR AND SHOWED NO EVIDENCE OF DISTRESS. IT COULD NOT BE DETERMINED WHY THE RETAINING PIN CONNECTING THE COLLECTIVE IDLER LINK TO THE IDLER LEVER SEPARATED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC88FA166
- Event ID
- 20001213X26056
- Case number
- NYC88FA166
- 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: ae8b507f65ccc222a7b2ec684d8e7dbd5b453ab09d1f2edebdaca3e15b864a0c; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:41:13.999Z.