Life Guard [ems] Bell 206L-1 accident
Bell 206L-1 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Portland, OR to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA87MA034
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N7EC
- Operator
- Life Guard [ems]
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland, ORTo 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER DEPARTED PENDLETON ON AN EMERG MED SVC/MED-EVAC (EMS) FLT TO TRANSPORT A PATIENT TO PORTLAND. AFTER DELIVERING THE PATIENT, THE PLT TOOK OFF ON THE RTN FLT WITH 2 MED PSNL ABOARD. DRG ARRIVAL AT 1658 PST, HE REQUESTED A SPECIAL VFR (SVFR) CLEARANCE TO THE PENDLETON ARPT. THE PLT WAS ADVISED TO HOLD & EXPECT CLEARANCE AT ABOUT 1725. AFTER INBOUND TRAFFIC HAD LANDED, A SVFR CLEARANCE WAS ISSUED. ABOUT 5 MIN LATER, THE PLT TRANSMITTED A MAYDAY CALL THAT HE HAD 'INADVERTENT IFR' & WAS NOT CAPABLE OF IFR FLT. AT 1732, THE LAST TRANSMISSION FROM THE PLT STATED HE WAS AT2200 FT MSL 'APPROXIMATELY 5.1 NM FROM . . .' SUBSEQUENTLY, THE HELICOPTER IMPACTED THE GROUND ABOUT 5 MI WEST OF THE ARPT, WHILE DSCNDG IN A RT BANK. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FND; RPRTDLY, THE HELICOPTER HAD DEPARTED PORTLAND WITH THE OIL TEMP GAGE INOP, TRANSPONDER REMOVED & A LEAK IN THE PITOT STATIC SYS. AT PENDLETON, THE 1650 PST WX WAS IN PART: 700 FT OVERCAST, VIS 3 MI WITH FOG. THE PLT WAS NOT CERTIFICATED FOR INSTRUMENT FLT IN HELICOPTERS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA87MA034
- Event ID
- 20001213X35442
- Case number
- SEA87MA034
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1986-12-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7bb92917c3c646c7de77f85972292332d2422d51903c7a7dac4d064ff8a483b6; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:16:40.033Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N7EC; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.