CHI05CA156 · Bell 206L-3
Bell 206L-3 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Oakland County International Airport (PTK) to Algonac, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05CA156
- 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 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
- N311JX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland County International Airport (PTK), Pontiac, MITo Algonac, MI
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Loss of tail rotor effectiveness, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter sustained substantial damage on impact with power lines, a garage, and terrain during an approach to land at a field. The pilot's accident report stated, "After we came out of the turn approximately the area of [buildings], we experienced a definite loss of tail rotor effectiveness. The helicopter rotated to the right. I immediately went with forward cyclic and lowered the collective. After 1-2 turns and losing altitude I could see this correction would not take hold before hitting the 2 story home right below us. At this point my focus went to avoid this home and try to get us to the area of the field across the street. I raised the collective causing further rotation but slowing our descent rate. While maneuvering the helicopter to the open area we struck powerlines and fell nearly vertically on the helicopter's forward and left side on a driveway between a garage and the street."
Probable cause
The pilot not maintaining helicopter control, the loss of tail rotor effectiveness he encountered, and his not maintaining clearance from objects during the approach. Factor were the low altitude, the transmission lines, and the garage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA156
- Event ID
- 20050805X01174
- Case number
- CHI05CA156
- 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: 99ec4694978d193f1fe86a5c737b77467b7a6d483950027468e979cf72a3e0bb; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:58:52.732Z.