Air Logistics Bell 206L-1 accident
Bell 206L-1 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From GRAND CHENIER, LA (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90FA046
- 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
- N3913S
- Operator
- Air Logistics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From GRAND CHENIER, LA (no airport)To 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER HAD BEEN LOADED NEAR ITS MAX GROSS WT LIMIT OF 4150 LBS. THE PLT RPRTD THAT DURING AN APCH TO AN OFFSHORE PLATFORM IN THE GULF OF MEXICO, THERE WAS VIRTUALLY NO WIND. AS THE APCH SPEED DROPPED BELOW EFFECTIVE TRANSLATIONAL LIFT, THE PLT NOTED A SHUDDER THAT DID NOT SEEM NORMAL, SO HE INITIATED A GO-AROUND. AS HE APPLIED POWER & PEDAL TO GO AROUND, THE ACFT SPUN TO THE RGT & THE NOSE TUCKED. THE PLT TRIED TO CORRECT THE SITUATION, BUT WAS UNABLE. HE RPRTD THAT JUST BEFORE WATER IMPACT HE LEVELED THE HELICOPTER, DEPLOYED THE EMERG FLOATS & APPLIED FULL COLLECTIVE PITCH. ALSO, HE STATED THE RATE OF SPIN DECREASED AS HE APPLIED COLLECTIVE PITCH. ONE OF THE LEFT FLOATS SEPARATED ON WATER ENTRY & THE HELICOPTER ROLLED OVER. NO FEEDBACK OR RESTRICTION OF THE CONTROLS WAS NOTED BEFORE IMPACT. A POST-ACDNT EXAM OF THE HELICOPTER DID NOT REVEAL ANY PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE AND CORRECT A SITUATION INVOLVING LOSS OF TAIL ROTOR EFFECTIVENESS, RESULTING IN LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90FA046
- Event ID
- 20001213X29956
- Case number
- FTW90FA046
- 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: e8127eb8f0c38dd5c493ca5e78d7fe02123f77a073f0b53bf1a72059b1ced18b; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:06:08.976Z.