ATL87FA009 · Bell 206B III
Bell 206B III · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From John C Tune Airport (JWN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87FA009
- 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
- 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 206B III
- 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
- N2204Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John C Tune Airport (JWN), Nashville, TNTo 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 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 · descent
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Other person › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Nashville, TN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS IN A DESCENT TOWARD A BUILDING IN A DOWNTOWN AREA WHICH HE WANTED AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF. AT ABOUT 1700 FT AGL HE REPORTED THE HELICOPTER JERKED HARD AND YAWED TO THE LEFT. HE INITIATED AN AUTOROTATION AND DURING THE DESCENT TO THE SELECTED LANDING SITE HE HAD TO BLEED OFF ROTOR RPM TO CLEAR WIRES ACROSS THE APCH PATH. A HARD LANDING RESULTED IN A STREET INTERSECTION. POST ACCIDENT INSPECTION REVEALED THE SPUR ADAPTER GEARSHAFT FORWARD SPLINES WERE SEVERELY WORN. THE FORWARD END OF THE GEARSHAFT WAS FRACTURED. THE FRACTURE HAD ORIGINATED FROM THE SHAFT SPLINE TEETH. THE OIL DELIVERY TUBE FOR THE FORWARD SPLINE LUBRICATION DID NOT MEET REQUIREMENTS ESTABLISHED BY THE ENGINE MANUFACTURER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87FA009
- Event ID
- 20001213X34907
- Case number
- ATL87FA009
- 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: 6cb1f807bf2e9949bab691de9549864357a0300e059ad7c4caac73a17fe11f75; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:10:38.885Z.