DEN83FA122 · Bell 206B
Beartooth Helicopters Bell 206B · Accident: fire/explosion during initial climb
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83FA122
- 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
- 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
- N16937
- Operator
- Beartooth Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fire/explosion
- 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
- Manufacturer › Inadequate quality control
- Turbine assembly, turbine wheel › Failure, total
- Turbine assembly, turbine wheel › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER MADE A HARD AUTOROTATIVE LANDING AFTER TAKEOFF FROM AN OFF ARPT LANDING STIE. THE PLT WAS ON A PERSONAL FLT WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS WHEN A ENGINE FIRE/EXPLOSION FORCED HIM TO LAND. THE FIRE WAS EXTINGUISHED BY THE PLT AFTER LANDING. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE FAILURE WAS DUE TO ERROR IN THE MANUFACTURE OF THE 1ST STAGE TURBINE WHEEL. ACCORDING TO AN ALLISON SPOKESMAN THE ERROR IN PROPER WEB THICKNESS WAS MADE DURING THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS AND ESCAPED DETECTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83FA122
- Event ID
- 20001214X42942
- Case number
- DEN83FA122
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-05-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1ce3696244605fc2f628490dc129ecb74ac2f5ca7171d45d4157b11066c057e7; retrieved 2026-09-23T22:09:12.096Z.