DFW05CA088 · Bell B-206L-1
Rotorcraft Leasing Bell B-206L-1 · Accident: abrupt maneuver while standing
From Gulf of Mexico (no airport) to Gulf of Mexico (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05CA088
- 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 B-206L-1
- Aircraft type
- Bell B-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
- N480RA
- Operator
- Rotorcraft Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gulf of Mexico (no airport)To Gulf of Mexico (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
- Standing · idling rotors
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Collective, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 1,514-hour pilot landed and remained parked on a platform in the Gulf of Mexico for approximately 10 minutes with the main rotor RPM at ground idle. While parked, the pilot grabbed the flight manifest and placed it in his lap to make an entry. While his head was down making the entry, the pilot had a sensation that the helicopter was "rocking backwards", and he grabbed both controls in an effort to "level" the helicopter. The pilot lifted up on the collective and pushed forward on the cyclic. The tail boom separated from the fuselage and both sections of the helicopter fell off the platform and into the water. Bell Helicopter Operations Safety Notice (OSN 206L-82-4), addressed tail boom skin compression wrinkles in all Bell model 206L/L-1/L-3 helicopter operations. The Notice stated, "Past 206 experience and flight tests...have revealed the tail boom and aft fuselage can be damaged if during an autorotation landing the main rotor RPM is allowed to decay below 70 percent RPM. Applying collective pitch in excess of that required will in some instances result in excessive flapping of the main rotor during or after touch down. This can cause a resonant response that can damage the tail boom and or aft of the fuselage. Touch down rotor RPM above 70 percent RPM is preferred. Upon ground contact collective pitch should be reduced smoothly without delay while maintaining cyclic pitch near the center position. Long ground runs with the collective up, or any tendency to float for a long distance prior to skid contact should be avoided." When asked how this accident could have been prevented, the operator stated, "Pilot should have remained more vigilant in monitoring control input and position. More aggressive use of control friction would have minimized the possibility of this occurrence." Examination of the wreckage revealed the tail boom separated forward of the horizontal stabilizer, consistent with an autorotation/low RPM failure.
Probable cause
The pilot's abrupt input of the collective while the main rotor RPM was at idle, which resulted in a separation of the tail boom.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05CA088
- Event ID
- 20050404X00401
- Case number
- DFW05CA088
- 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: b5b7f1a66e0ad84e6f2aade6090ebcb2e0011aaa6b6b341dcaca9c1b077f24c6; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:09:14.880Z.