IAD05LA084 · Bell 206B
Helicopters Bell 206B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL) to Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05LA084
- 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
- N1212N
- Operator
- Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL), Cleveland, OHTo Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL)
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover out of ground effect
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Turboshaft engine, power output shaft › Failure
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 was hovering the helicopter above an airport at 5,000 feet msl, when he heard a loud "bang." Witnesses on the ground also reported hearing the "bang," and a puff of white smoke was also observed. The helicopter yawed in a nose right direction, and pitched nose down. The pilot regained control of the helicopter about 1,500 feet msl, and subsequently performed an autorotation to a runway. The helicopter landed "hard," and the main rotor contacted the tail boom, separating it from the helicopter. Inspections of the helicopter following the accident revealed that the isolation mount had separated from the transmission and that the main drive shaft had separated. Examination of the main drive shaft, and its associated couplings, revealed failures consistent with an excessive angular displacement between the rotational axis of the drive shaft and the couplings. Examination of the helicopter's transmission compartment revealed damage to the structure around the main drive shaft and grease spray consistent with rotation prior to its failure. In addition, small pieces of metal and metallic dust were identified at the very front of the transmission deck.
Probable cause
A failure of the main drive shaft for undetermined reasons, which resulted in a total loss of engine power. A factor was pilot's improper flare, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05LA084
- Event ID
- 20050629X00894
- Case number
- IAD05LA084
- 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: a5cace7bbfbafc3c1e2b98d71af33a46d632a6de2266d9cf6a0f29dccacb7172; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:43:53.857Z.