FTW84LA081 · Bell 206L-1
Bell 206L-1 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From an unrecorded airport to Oklahoma City, OK
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW84LA081
- 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
- 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
- N2005A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Oklahoma City, OK
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT STATED THAT BEFORE HE TOOK OFF FROM OKLAHOMA CITY, OK, HE CALLED THE OKLAHOMA CITY FSS & OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING. THE BRIEFING CALLED FOR LIGHT RAIN SHOWERS, MINIMUM CEILING OF 1800 FT, VISIBILITY OF 3 TO 5 MILES & NO CHANCE OF FOG, EXCEPT IN LOW LYING AREAS. HE AND ANOTHER PLT TOOK OFF IN A FLT OF 2 HELICOPTERS TO TRANSPORT A PATIENT FROM ARDMORE, OK TO OKLAHOMA CITY. AFTER ARRIVING AT ARDMORE, THE MISSION WAS CANCELLED WHEN THE PATIENT DIED. ABOUT 1 HR & 20 MIN AFTER ARRIVING AT ARDMORE, THEY DEPARTED FOR THE RETURN FLT AFTER RECEIVING ARDMORE ATIS. THE OTHER HELICOPTER WAS EQUIPPED WITH A RADAR ALTIMETER & LED THE WAY OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THE PLT OF N2005A WAS FOLLOWING ABOUT 3/4 MI BEHIND WHEN THE CEILING & VISIBILITY DETERIORATED TO ABOUT 500 FT & 1 MI. THE PLT SAID THAT HE HAD CLOSED ON THE LEAD HELICOPTER & WAS DESCENDNG & DECELERATING WHEN HIS ACFT COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND. IMPACT OCCURRED ON BANKED TERRAIN BESIDE A HIGHWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW84LA081
- Event ID
- 20001214X45293
- Case number
- FTW84LA081
- 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 1983-12-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 79166eced33e82fd09137ad048cd95b86d2aeaa932851def24c0360f6839ad17; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:25:32.496Z.