FTW82DA144 · Bell 206L-1
Petroleum Helicipters Bell 206L-1 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Cameron, LA to VE58 · GULF OF MEXICO
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW82DA144
- 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
- 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
- N2138Y
- Operator
- Petroleum Helicipters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cameron, LATo VE58 · GULF OF MEXICO
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Rotor drive system, tail rotor gearbox(90 deg) › Fatigue
- Rotor system, tail rotor hub counterweight › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
N2138Y DEPARTED CAMERON, LA AFTER REFUELING EN ROUTE TO AN OFFSHORE RIG. SHORTLY AFTER DEPARTURE, WHILE OVER WATER, THE AIRCRAFT BEGAN TO YAW AND VIBRATE SEVERELY. THE PILOT STATED THAT THE TAIL ROTOR PEDALS "KICKED" HARD WHEN ADDITIONAL POWER WAS APPLIED. THE AIRCRAFT STARTED TO SPIRAL AND TUCK TO THE RIGHT. THE PILOT DEPLOYED THE FLOATS AND CLOSED THE THROTTLE IN AN EFFORT TO CUSHION THE IMPACT. EXAMINATION OF THE TAIL ROTOR BLADE REVEALED THAT THE BLADE TIP COUNTERWEIGHT SEPARATED, CAUSING A SEVERE DYNAMIC IMBALANCE. THE COUNTERWEIGHT SEPARATION WAS DUE TO DEBONDING OF THE WEIGHT BLOCK AND THE BLADESKIN SOMETIME PRIOR TO THE SUBJECT FLIGHT. EXAMINATION OF THE TAIL ROTOR GEARBOX REVEALED EVIDENCE OF FATIGUE FRACTURES OF THE GEARBOX ATTACHMENT STUB.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW82DA144
- Event ID
- 20020917X02084
- Case number
- FTW82DA144
- 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: c75dcf682ca26c8ef8024015295b00d35dd0787d9d2b77d8e7bba59e7562e229; retrieved 2026-09-24T03:22:44.276Z.