DFW07IA018 · Bell 206-L4
Bell 206-L4 · Incident: fire while standing
From Gulf of Mexico to Abbeville, LA
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07IA018
- 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
- Incident
- 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 206-L4
- 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
- N266AL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gulf of MexicoTo Abbeville, LA
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- 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
- Fire
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to the helicopter's departure from an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, two passengers loaded the helicopter's baggage compartment with two small duffel bags and a backpack. After arriving at the helicopter's base approximately 35 minutes later, they went to the rear of the helicopter where they noticed smoke coming from the baggage compartment. A fire in the compartment was quickly extinguished. Both passengers reported that they had smelled something burning before leaving the oil platform, but were told the coastal marsh is burnt every year and the smell is noticed from the platforms. The passenger's baggage contained two handheld radios that were sent to the National Transportation Safety Boards Material fire laboratory in Washington, D.C., for examination. Examination of the radios failed to identify any anomalies, and a source for the fire could not be determined.
Probable cause
A fire in the baggage area for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07IA018
- Event ID
- 20061205X01739
- Case number
- DFW07IA018
- 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. 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: a316c62a994963ce455cb9106ebc1ffc777d07fdff32bf2da80cbde4c65b845e; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:49:58.290Z.