SEA04LA090 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Bow, WA to Enumclaw, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA090
- 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 206B
- 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
- N206AF
- Operator
- Thomas J. Paulus · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bow, WATo Enumclaw, WA
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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 reported that while in cruise flight at about 900 to 1,000 feet above ground level, 95 knots, and 80% torque, without warning, the helicopter suddenly lost altitude and yawed violently to the left and rapidly rolled (pilot unsure as to which direction). The pilot initiated an autorotation to a field, maneuvering to avoid trees. The pilot stated that during the flare, he pulled in collective, and the helicopter yawed, so he "rolled off the throttle." The helicopter touched down with almost no forward speed, the right landing skid collapsed and rolled over onto its right side. The pilot stated that he did not recall hearing the engine out beeper or the low rotor RPM horn and he did not note the engine or rotor RPM indications during the descent. Post accident inspection of the airframe and subsequent inspection and teardown of the engine and associated components did not find evidence of a mechanical failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
Loss of control for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA090
- Event ID
- 20040528X00686
- Case number
- SEA04LA090
- 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: 54147113b79c08093e986d98409ef12d92488b89605562152b2675c76a11ca44; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:29:09.294Z.