Air Logistics MBB BO-105 accident
MBB BO-105 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From SMI7 · SOUTH MARSH 7, GM to Harry P Williams Memorial Airport (PTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW89LA031
- 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
MBB BO-105
- Aircraft type
- MBB BO-105
- 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
- N2785B
- Operator
- Air Logistics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SMI7 · SOUTH MARSH 7, GMTo Harry P Williams Memorial Airport (PTN), Patterson, 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 · climb to 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Failure, total
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Separation
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
AS THE HELICOPTER WAS CLIMBING THRU ABOUT 500 FT, THE PLT HEARD A LOUD NOISE, FELT A SEVERE VIBRATION & SAW DEBRIS FALLING IN FRONT OF THE ACFT. HE BEGAN AN AUTOROTATION & DEPLOYED THE EMERGENCY FLOATS BEFORE LANDING ON WATER IN THE GULF OF MEXICO. THE HELICOPTER REMAINED AFLOAT & THE OCCUPANTS DEPLOYED & ENTERED A RAFT FROM WHICH THEY WERE PICKED UP ABOUT 1 HR LATER. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT ONE OF THE TAIL ROTOR BLADES HAD SEPARATED & STRUCK A MAIN ROTOR BLADE. THE RESULTING IMBALANCE CAUSED THE GEARBOX TO SEPARATE & FALL IN THE WATER. THE 90 DEG GEARBOX, TAIL ROTOR HUB AND TAIL ROTOR BLADES WERE NOT RECOVERED FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO.
Probable cause
FAILURE AND SEPARATION OF ONE OF THE TAIL ROTOR BLADES FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS. THR RESULTING IMBALANCE AND VIBRATION CAUSED THE SEPARATION OF THE 90 DEGREE GEARBOX AND A PORTION OF THE VERTICAL PYLON WHICH NECESSITATED THE EMERGENCY AUTOROTATION TO THE WATER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW89LA031
- Event ID
- 20001213X27426
- Case number
- FTW89LA031
- 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: aacbc21f57eff1357e8b1d073c9179ee10315133815a2db905c2eafde89939e8; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:16:12.177Z.