NYC06LA062 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Yeager Airport (CRW) to Middlesboro-Bell County Airport (1A6)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA062
- 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
- N36HF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yeager Airport (CRW), Charleston, WVTo Middlesboro-Bell County Airport (1A6), Middlesboro, KY
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Settling with power, inadvertent
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 of the helicopter was en route to pick up passengers, when approximately 16 miles prior to his intended destination, he landed in a field due to deteriorating weather conditions. During a cellular telephone conversation with his employer, it was decided that the pilot should reverse course, land at a nearby airport, or return to the helicopter's base. The pilot took off from the field and attempted to fly directly to an airport, but was again unable to follow his desired course due to weather. As he maneuvered, the weather improved, the ridgelines were visible, and the pilot was able to fly "about 100 feet above the trees, and 200 feet below the clouds" as he approached a field that was crossed by a power line. The pilot said he chose to land in the field because of a "klunking" noise behind him. "As I entered the approach the noise got worse and the aircraft started to vibrate. The vibrations got very bad as I tried to arrest my descent, so I decided that touching down hard was better than shaking apart." Examination of the global positioning system ground track revealed that the helicopter descended at a rate of 1,000 feet per minute during an s-turn across the face of a mountain before it leveled over flat terrain, and slowed below effective translational lift, in the vicinity of the crash site. The crash site was surrounded by rising terrain, in the lee of a mountain with strong winds, and an AIRMET for turbulence was in effect along the route of flight. The helicopter experienced a high sink rate and high levels of vibration prior to ground contact. According to The Good Aviation Practices publication Helicopter Performance, published by the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (November 2002), "Local terrain, trees, and buildings all influence the flow of wind near them. The mechanical turbulence resulting from this disturbed airflow may become very marked in the lee of the obstruction. A gusting wind situation where windshear is likely to be present will require a greater power margin to deal with any unexpected loss of airspeed and sink." Examination of the wreckage and a post accident engine run revealed no preimpact anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent settling with power during a descent. Contributing to the accident was mechanical turbulence in the lee of an obstruction in windy conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA062
- Event ID
- 20060315X00303
- Case number
- NYC06LA062
- 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: ab8829aaca3bd90f21414eed3e073e12c3547373020a1a385e385ccf2c42c1d6; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:00:01.097Z.