Rotorcraft Leasing Bell 206 L4 incident
Bell 206 L4 · Incident during takeoff
From Gulf of Mexico, LA (no airport) to Gulf of Mexico, LA (no airport)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10IA438
- 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
- N317RL
- Operator
- Rotorcraft Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gulf of Mexico, LA (no airport)To Gulf of Mexico, LA (no airport)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During takeoff from an offshore oil platform, the pilot reported a loss of main rotor rpm. The pilot activated the emergency float system and initiated an autorotation to the water. Upon touchdown, the engine was still operating. The pilot shut down the engine and prepared the passengers to evacuate. All three occupants safely evacuated the helicopter (which was upright on its skid-mounted float system) and boarded the emergency life raft that the pilot had inflated. The helicopter remained upright floating on the water and was later recovered and transported to the operator’s on-shore maintenance facility. The operator did immediate fuel quality tests at the facility where the helicopter had most recently been refueled and found no problems.
An examination of the helicopter drive systems and a test run of the engine did not reveal any preincident anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the main rotor system. The cause of the loss of main rotor rpm could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of main rotor rpm during takeoff for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10IA438
- Event ID
- 20100726X84918
- Case number
- CEN10IA438
- 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: 8058e59e2ff786560e242953942ea71146dc45938a23f83feed54a3ab4873f96; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:45:34.759Z.