DFW06LA072 · Bell 222B
Bell 222B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to Gulf of Mexico, GM
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06LA072
- 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 222B
- Aircraft type
- Bell 222
- 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
- N306CH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TXTo Gulf of Mexico, GM
- 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
- 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
- Flightcrew › Diverted attention
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 11,308-hour airline transport pilot and copilot were preparing to land on a brightly lit ship, at night with haze, with a 25-knot wind. With the autopilot engaged, the pilot turned on the landing light, set the parking brake, and extended the landing gear. During the transition, the pilot's attention was turned inside the helicopter's flightdeck to prepare for the ship landing. The copilot was busy looking for paperwork and preparing to assist the ship's crew once on deck. The pilot disengaged the autopilot system and pressed the SAS/ATT (Stability Augmentation System/Attitude Retention System) button to change from attitude mode to SAS mode, when he looked up just in time to see the water. The helicopter impacted the water, and sank in approximately 200 feet of water. The helicopter was not recovered. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical problems with the helicopter prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The flight crew's failure to maintain control of the helicopter, and the crew's diverted attention to secondary tasks while preparing for the night landing. A contributing factor was the dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06LA072
- Event ID
- 20060223X00225
- Case number
- DFW06LA072
- 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: 0efa03d2d7ad27b4cbd154a88b761725fc5dfcc6ca2b0eae2b98d6e1ca275b23; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:49:36.656Z.