FTW03LA104 · Bell 206L-3
Bell 206L-3 · Accident: rotor failure/malfunction en route
From Marble Falls, TX (no airport) to Llano, TX (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA104
- 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-3
- 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
- N793CA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marble Falls, TX (no airport)To Llano, TX (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
- 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
- Rotor failure/malfunction
- 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
- Door, cargo/baggage › Not secured
- Rotor drive system, tail rotor drive shaft › Sheared
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot started the engine of the helicopter prior to the two medical crewmembers boarding. One medical crewmember opened the aft cargo door, removed medical equipment, and then closed the door. He then checked the auxiliary power unit (APU) door and boarded the helicopter. During this time the second medical crewmember had boarded the helicopter. The pilot reported that the takeoff was normal. Ten minutes after takeoff, the helicopter was in cruise flight at 700 feet agl (8 miles from the destination) when a loud bang was heard. The helicopter yawed right and the nose dipped. The pilot lowered the collective and moved the throttle to flight idle. Subsequently, the helicopter landed hard on soft terrain, amongst pecan trees, and came to rest upright. Examination of the accident site and helicopter revealed that a medical blanket had exited from the aft cargo compartment and contacted the tailrotor blades severing the tailrotor drive shaft. Examination of the aft cargo door revealed that its locking mechanism was not damaged, and operated normally.
Probable cause
The loss of tail rotor drive as a result of a blanket coming in contract with the tailrotor blades, after the aft cargo door was left unsecured. Contributing factors were the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing, and the failure of the medical crewmember to properly secure the aft cargo door.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA104
- Event ID
- 20030310X00302
- Case number
- FTW03LA104
- 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, coordinates. 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: cccdbe95d3f78e173594a5f7350d4a43d267100da1b8800e64eaa062e84369e4; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:32:50.199Z.