Coastal Helicopters Bell 206L-1 accident
Bell 206L-1 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From Juneau International Airport (JNU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC06LA066
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-1
- 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
- N45RP
- Operator
- Coastal Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Juneau International Airport (JNU), Juneau, AKTo not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, 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 commercial certificated pilot was conducting a helicopter air tour over glaciers and mountainous terrain under Title 14, CFR Part 135 when the helicopter inadvertently collided with terrain while maneuvering in reduced visibility. Passengers, a passenger's video recording, and another air tour helicopter pilot, depicted the weather as foggy, with whiteout and flat light conditions. One passenger remarked that she wondered how the pilot could see to fly in such weather. The helicopter collided with terrain in an all-white snow/ice field and sustained substantial damage. According to an FAA inspector who interviewed the pilot shortly after the accident, the pilot stated that he was maneuvering the helicopter over the ice field, and didn't see the snowfield/ground due to the flat light conditions. Another passenger remarked to the FAA inspector that he didn't see the ground before impact either, as it was all white around the helicopter. The accident helicopter was not equipped with a radar altimeter. In 2002, following a series of similar accidents involving helicopters colliding with snow and ice fields in flat light and whiteout conditions, several in the same area as this accident flight, the NTSB recommended to the FAA that all commercial, passenger-carrying helicopters that operate over areas conducive to flat light or whiteout conditions, be equipped with radar altimeters to assist the pilot in determining their height above terrain (NTSB Recommendation A-02-035). As of February, 2007, the NTSB has classified the FAA's response to the recommendation as "Open--Unacceptable Response."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate altitude/clearance from terrain while maneuvering in adverse weather conditions. Factors associated with the accident are the pilot's decision to continue flight into adverse weather, fog, whiteout and flat light conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC06LA066
- Event ID
- 20060606X00685
- Case number
- ANC06LA066
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-06-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6ed41ff201754976829a2cb70b9ddcfd4b3f07a09dad957815db0652dc4faa9f; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:52:53.908Z.