Valley Aviation Bell 206-BIII accident
Bell 206-BIII · Accident during initial climb
From Fish Lake US Forest Service Airport (S92) to Orofino Municipal Airport (S68)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA84LA025
- 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
- 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 206-BIII
- 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
- N49584
- Operator
- Valley Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fish Lake US Forest Service Airport (S92), FISH LAKE, IDTo Orofino Municipal Airport (S68), ORIFINO, ID
- 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Flare, not possible
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER LANDED HARD AND ROLLED OVER TO THE RIGHT. THE EVENTS STARTED WHEN THE PILOT HEARD THE END OF A SEAT BELT BANGING AGAINST THE OUTSIDE OF THE ACFT WHERE IT HAD BEEN CAUGHT IN THE DOOR. THE PILOT DECIDED TO LAND AND SECURE THE BELT. DURING LANDING THE DOWNWASH FROM THE ACFT BLEW UP SNOW AND THE PILOT LOST SIGHT OF THE GROUND. A HARD LANDING AND ROLLOVER RESULTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA84LA025
- Event ID
- 20001214X45413
- Case number
- SEA84LA025
- 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: 06ebfe8a052fd972a16df5bff1255a8733659fab73330f90abc5a560147f4c27; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:49:59.602Z.