MIA03TA152 · Bell BHT-206-B3
Bell BHT-206-B3 · Accident: roll over during takeoff
From Buckingham Field (FL59) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03TA152
- 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
- Government
- 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 BHT-206-B3
- Aircraft type
- Bell BHT-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
- N876M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buckingham Field (FL59), Lehigh Acres, FLTo not recorded
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › Clearance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he had landed in a marshy area to allow a mosquito control inspector to perform an inspection of the area over which they were going to conduct an aerial application flight the afternoon. As he landed, he said he noted that the landing surface was flat with 6-inch grass, 1-inch standing water, and mud. He said he inspected the right skid from the cockpit, while the inspector departed the helicopter to inspect the mangrove, and saw a branch or root extending 6 inches above the grass, 4 inches outboard of the right skid near the aft cross tube saddle. He said the inspector returned and reported no obstructions to the left skid, and before the takeoff check was complete, he ascended, establishing a 2-foot stable hover in a level attitude. He said he checked the torque, and began to increase collective for climbout, but the helicopter did not climb. He looked over his right shoulder to check for an obstruction, and at that time detected that a roll was developing to the right. He said he tried to reduce the collective, but it was not enough. The roll continued and the helicopter came to rest on its right side. Prior to the accident, the pilot said there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions to the helicopter or any of its systems.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to adequately clear the right skid of obstructions which resulted in a dynamic rollover to the right during takeoff and damage to the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03TA152
- Event ID
- 20030805X01263
- Case number
- MIA03TA152
- 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: 761fa1b723265aeb995652a600a9b18fe10149455d426f20e7c35be33ef4ca11; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:17:24.058Z.