LAX01LA063 · Bell 206-L3
Bell 206-L3 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From TUSCON, AZ to P33
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA063
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 206-L3
- 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
- N288JB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From TUSCON, AZTo P33
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Cyclic, inadvertent use
- Pilot in command › Incapacitation(other organic problem)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 20 feet above the touchdown point, the pilot doubled over due to severe cramping, inadvertently moving the cyclic forward and to the right causing the main rotor blades to contact the ground. The helicopter came to rest on its side. The pilot tried to drink a glass of tea about 2 hours before the mission, but discarded it because it tasted bad. He felt a little discomfort during the mission when he detected the tea taste again. After the mission he felt better and did not expect any problems on the return to base. About 5 minutes from the base hospital, nausea, sweating, and cramps suddenly overcame the pilot, and he began to retch. It was a dark, moonless night, and rough terrain was below him. The airport was at his 12 o'clock position at 5 miles, so he elected to fly there rather than attempt an off-airport landing. He requested a sick sack about 1 minute prior to landing.
Probable cause
The pilot's incapacitation that resulted from nausea during the final approach to landing. The pilot collapsed on the cyclic, which precipitated inadvertent contact between the main rotor blades and the ground. Factors were hilly terrain on a dark night, which discouraged the pilot from attempting to land at the first signs of discomfort.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA063
- Event ID
- 20010105X00037
- Case number
- LAX01LA063
- 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: 6e077a1319f1ae366fcef34406e0b7fee1e23fac7de684339827e1fa4950eff0; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:01:50.126Z.