Rotor Aids Bell 212 accident
Bell 212 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA277
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 212
- Aircraft type
- Bell 212
- 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
- N59636
- Operator
- Rotor Aids
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Goleta, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT STATED THAT AS HE APPROACHED THE OIL RIG & REDUCED POWER TO START HIS DESCENT FROM 500 FT, THE TAIL ROTOR (T/R) PEDALS BEGAN TO VIBRATE. THE VIBRATIONS BECAME WORSE WITH A FURTHER REDUCTION OF POWER TO REDUCE AIRSPEED. THE PLT THEN PLANNED A DESCENT SO AS TO BE CLOSER TO THE WATER IN CASE OF A COMPLETE T/R FAILURE. HOWEVER, THE ACFT UNEXPECTEDLY STRUCK THE WATER BEFORE THE PLT ARMED THE AUTOMATICALLY ACTUATED EMERGENCY FLOTATION BAGS. THE ACFT IMMEDIATELY ROLLED OVER. THE M/R ASSEMBLY, T/R ASSEMBLY AFT OF THE 42 DEG GEAR BOX, VERTICAL FIN & UPPER TRANSMISSION WERE NOT RECOVERED. THE OPERATOR DID NOT HAVE A CFR 135 EXEMPTION ALLOWING SINGLE PILOT OPERATIONAL OF A BELL 212 OVER WATER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA277
- Event ID
- 20001214X43375
- Case number
- LAX83FA277
- 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: 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: 291613bafbd3047bc6a46182c586b892b5dc7db489a6b981214b958a570e085e; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:30:40.515Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N59636; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.