Petrolium Helicopters Bell 206L-3 accident
Bell 206L-3 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From E.I. 276, LA to 7LSR · Intracoastal Ci, LA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03FA259
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N41128
- Operator
- Petrolium Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From E.I. 276, LATo 7LSR · Intracoastal Ci, LA
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The on-demand offshore helicopter flight received substantial damage when, according to a witness, it rolled right and off the platform during takeoff. A passenger aboard the flight said that the distance between the helicopter's right landing gear skid and the refueling station was enough to allow two people to walk through. Examination of the wreckage and platform revealed the presence of witness marks and paint transfer on the helideck and right landing skid. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. Witnesses reported that the helicopter landed next to the refueling station on the helideck with a left crosswind of 10-20 mph and one of these witnesses said that the winds increased to 45-50 mph with misting rain. Another witness said that the wind was high and increased in intensity. Rain was also present and he noted a bolt of lightning in the vicinity. No anomalies were noted with the helicopter's propulsion and flight control systems.
Probable cause
The inadequate compensation for crosswind conditions and the directional control not obtained/maintained by the pilot during takeoff. Contributing factors were the crosswind and the planned approach to position the helicopter with a crosswind in order to perform hot refueling adjacent to the helideck refueling station.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03FA259
- Event ID
- 20030826X01403
- Case number
- CHI03FA259
- 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: b52b992a692de91f8945414fa7b5cfe7f8d13c2d3014159068e34ee568bee37c; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:02:11.152Z.