LAX02LA039 · Bell 206 B-2
Bell 206 B-2 · Accident: roll over while maneuvering
From Aieia, HI to Aieia, HI
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's flight rules. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA039
- 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 B-2
- 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
- N968YC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aieia, HITo Aieia, HI
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load Possible conflict
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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
- Roll over
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a hovering passenger pickup, the helicopter rolled over and collided with the ground. The purpose of the flight was to pickup a work crew and transfer them to another location. When the helicopter arrived at the pickup location, the pilot radioed the crew that he wanted them to board the helicopter from the left side. When the first man boarded the helicopter, it was from the right side, and he did not change his seat position to the opposite side. According to the pilot, as the second man was boarding, the helicopter began to "sway" back and forth. He released his grip on the helicopter, and was backing away from it when the helicopter impacted the ground on its right side. The work crews stated that the helicopter began "swaying" out of control before the second workman reached the helicopter to board. The work crews had been briefed earlier that day that if the pilot was unable to land due to terrain, the crew would have to exit and enter the helicopter while it was hovered. The seating arrangement was for the heavier people to sit in the back, with the lighter person seated in the front. One person was to board at a time, and then move to the opposite side of the helicopter before a second workman boarded. The last person to enter the helicopter would be the front seat passenger.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of lateral control while in a hover that resulted in a rollover and collision with the ground. A factor was the unclear exit and boarding procedures provided to the work crew, who were non-aviators, during the preflight briefing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA039
- Event ID
- 20011212X02390
- Case number
- LAX02LA039
- 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 2001-12-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d02cd26de0c67b299970733038f54ae8e23213bc710e60dc19f0bafc92e74a31; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:17:35.415Z.