WPR13FA080 · Bell 206 B3
San Joaquin Helicopters Bell 206 B3 · Accident: loss of visual reference while maneuvering
From Delano Municipal Airport (DLO) to Delano Municipal Airport (DLO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13FA080
- 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
- 1 · 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 206 B3
- 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
- N828AC
- Operator
- San Joaquin Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delano Municipal Airport (DLO), Delano, CATo Delano Municipal Airport (DLO), Delano, CA
- 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 visual reference
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident helicopter was returning to the airport. Dark night visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time with increasing fog. The pilot of a second helicopter, who was flying nearby and was in contact with the accident pilot, stated that, before the accident, he saw the accident helicopter make a right turn; he then asked the pilot if she was lost. The accident pilot responded that she thought she was. The second pilot told her to turn left toward the airport. Shortly after, the second pilot observed a fire on the ground and attempted to contact the accident pilot but received no reply. The accident helicopter crashed about 10 miles southeast of the destination airport. Postaccident documentation of the accident site revealed signatures indicative of a steep right turn while impacting vegetation and terrain. Examinations of the helicopter and engine revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The dark night conditions, sparsely lit terrain, and accumulating fog reduced the visual cues available for the pilot to maintain orientation, and, under those conditions, the helicopter's external spotlights, which were on during the accident flight, could have further reduced or provided misleading visual cues. These conditions were conducive to the development of spatial disorientation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain helicopter control due to spatial disorientation while maneuvering in low visibility, dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13FA080
- Event ID
- 20130102X13158
- Case number
- WPR13FA080
- 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. 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: 452395ddd9037541b06ede811f7ce8997207647fc10cd5b718c035da66e5f7a9; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:51:18.266Z.