SEA08LA213 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness while maneuvering
From Laramie, WY to Laramie, WY
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA213
- 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
- N59611
- Operator
- James E Simon · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laramie, WYTo Laramie, WY
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Loss of tail rotor effectiveness
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 reported that he was flying over his ranch property at about 50 knots looking for stray cattle when "...a strong tailwind or twister caused the ship to vibrate very fast and violent, and dove to the right." The pilot stated that several people on the ground observed the helicopter spin 5 to 6 times before impacting the uneven and sloping ground and rolling over. The pilot further stated, "I couldn't get response from the tail rotor, collective, or cyclic." The ranch foreman saw the helicopter making a "big circle," followed by 3 or 4 "tight circles" in a clockwise direction before impacting terrain. A post crash examination of the helicopter by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation safety inspector revealed no apparent malfunctions. The pilot reported no preimpact anomalies with the helicopter. The Rotorcraft Flying Handbook states that a loss of tail rotor effectiveness (LTE) is the occurrence of an uncommanded yaw rate that does not subside on its own accord, which can result in the loss of helicopter control. The recovery technique for LTE is full left pedal while simultaneously moving cyclic control forward to increase airspeed. If altitude permits, reduce power. FAA Advisory Circular 90-95 states, "Any maneuver which requires the pilot to operate in a high-power, low-airspeed environment with a left crosswind or tailwind creates an environment where unanticipated right yaw may occur."
Probable cause
The pilot's encounter with a loss of tail rotor effectiveness event and his failure to maintain directional control while maneuvering. Contributing to the accident were the tailwind condition and the sloping, uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA213
- Event ID
- 20081004X12025
- Case number
- SEA08LA213
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 0ecac84cc6d4304624b43bae0884f71849647c218ece1ec5bb53bee5207f283f; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:22:42.074Z.