LAX85MA012 · Bell 206B
Uco Air Bell 206B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL) to Big Bear City Airport (L35)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85MA012
- 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
- 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
- N3U
- Operator
- Uco Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL), Fullerton, CATo Big Bear City Airport (L35), Big Bear City, CA
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT DEPARTED FULLERTON, CA (ELEV 96') AT O958 PDT ON A FLT TO BIG BEAR, CA (ELEV 6750'). THERE WAS NO RECORD OF THE PLT OBTAINING A WX BRIEFING. AT APRX 1015, A WITNESS HEARD THE HELICOPTER CIRCLING ABOVE THE BOTTOM OF 'AN EARLY MORNING FOG HANGING OVER THE GROUND AT APRX 300 FT.' AFTER CIRCLING ABOUT 3 TO 5 MIN, THE HELICOPTER BEGAN TO FLY SOUTH WHEN IT SUDDENLY WAS OBSERVED FLYING OUT OF THE FOG AT A STEEP ANGLE TOWARD THE GROUND. IT WAS ANGLED NOSE DOWN WITH A SLIGHT ROLL TO THE LEFT. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE HELICOPTER CRASHED IN A TAIL LOW, LEFT BANK ATTITUDE. THE ENG WAS REPORTED TO BE OPERATING AT A HI POWER SETTING UNTIL THE HELICPOTER CRASHED & BURNED. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF LOW ROTOR RPM, THAT THE CYCLIC CONTROL WAS FULL AFT & THAT THE COLLECTIVE WAS FULL DOWN AT IMPACT. APRX 4 MI EAST, THE 1019 WX WAS, IN PART: SKY PARTIALLY OBSCURED, 1000' OVERCAST, VISIBILITY 3/4 MI WITH FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85MA012
- Event ID
- 20001214X41423
- Case number
- LAX85MA012
- 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: e59681b896cb0bfdc92d8eb5392d8ec302fd6f7e20eff50269e81e3f839c1e24; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:18:08.273Z.