LAX02LA178 · Bell 206L-1
Papillon Airways Bell 206L-1 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Grand Canyon West Airport (1G4) to No airport
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA178
- 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 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
- N1075S
- Operator
- Papillon Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Canyon West Airport (1G4), Grand Canyon, AZTo No airport
- 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
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Distance/altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that prior to impact, the helicopter was operating normally but he could not recall details. One witness said the helicopter descended along the canyon wall at an altitude of 40 to 50 feet, and slowed its descent as it made a course reversal towards the landing zone. The nose "dipped," then rose, and the tail boom struck the ground and separated, and the helicopter began to "spin out of control." Another witness saw the helicopter "twisting in a horizontal plane, i.e. the tail swinging from side to side" just before impact. A third witness, a helicopter pilot, said the wind was light and variable as he heard rotor blade "slap," and knew the helicopter was in a turn. He then heard the sound of impact. According to the company's loader, there was no change in the engine or rotor sounds prior to the tailboom striking "a small incline of a hill." Postaccident examination disclosed no evidence of mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain distance and altitude during landing approach, resulting in the helicopter striking the ground during approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA178
- Event ID
- 20020610X00837
- Case number
- LAX02LA178
- 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: 6f5ded1f1cb8bbb212ee81d6bfedd83c494376eec59b2086d844e85cb63b6b80; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:43:03.889Z.