ATL87MA028 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87MA028
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Bell 206B
- 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
- N59610
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK), Cincinnati, OHTo 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Company/operator management › Dispatch, improper
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE OWNER/OPERATOR (OPER) OF A FLYING SERVICE PROVIDED ACFT FOR BROADCASTING STATIONS IN THE AREA. A RADIO STATION HAD CONTRACTED WITH THE OPER TO PROVIDE A HELICOPTER (HELO, N59610) & A PLT TO TAKE A NEWS RPRTR ON A LOCAL TRAFFIC WATCH. THE OPER RPRTD THAT ON THE MORNING OF THE ACDNT, THE CEILING WAS RAGGED & HE SUGGESTED TO THE NEWS RPRTR THAT THE TAKE- OFF BE DELAYED UNTIL DAYLIGHT. THE RPRTR REJECTED THE SUGGESTION, SINCE AN ACFT FOR A COMPETING BROADCASTING STATION WAS ALREADY AIRBORNE. THE OPER HAD A POLICY OF NOT FLYING A HELO WHEN THE CEILING OR VIS WAS LESS THAN 300' OR 1/2 MI, BUT THE DECISION FOR FLT WAS LEFT TO THE PLT. BFR SUNRISE, N59610 WAS CLRD AS LEADER OF A FLT OF 2 FOR A SVFR DEPARTURE IN FOGGY CONDS. THE PLT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED. AFTER DEPARTING, N59610 ENTERED DENSE FOG & SUBSEQUENTLY CRASHED ON WOODED, RISING TERRAIN ABOUT 1 MI SOUTH OF THE DEPARTURE POINT. AT CINCINNATI, THE 0555 WX WAS, IN PART: 600' OVERCAST, 1-1/2 MI VIS WITH FOG; AT 0655 THE CEILING & VIS WERE 200' OVERCAST & 1/2 MI WITH FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87MA028
- Event ID
- 20001213X35106
- Case number
- ATL87MA028
- 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: 96096df8bc490ab3ea30c3ccc0ea4109f92552734d15ebe22cc5e55a5b7ad396; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:19:27.796Z.