WPR13CA206 · Bell Helicopter Textron 206L-1
Papillon Airways Bell Helicopter Textron 206L-1 · Accident: tailstrike during landing
From KGN · Grand Canyon, AZ to KGN · Grand Canyon, AZ
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13CA206
- 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 Helicopter Textron 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
- N2072M
- Operator
- Papillon Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From KGN · Grand Canyon, AZTo KGN · Grand Canyon, AZ
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Tailstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that she and the pilot receiving instruction were practicing autorotations. During an autorotation involving a right 180-degree turn, the flight instructor announced that the throttle was coming on, and then announced when full throttle was on. The pilot then started to level the helicopter. Because the wind had shifted to a tailwind during the maneuver, the pilot was forced to flare harder and use more cyclic control than expected. The flight instructor realized that completing a power recovery from the autorotation was going to result in an overtorque condition, took over control, and landed the helicopter. During the landing, the tailboom was substantially damaged. The flight instructor reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The failure of the flight instructor and the pilot receiving instruction to recognize before entering the flare that the wind had shifted to a tailwind and terminate the practice autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13CA206
- Event ID
- 20130423X85953
- Case number
- WPR13CA206
- 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: c8cd5bb47235be526e5a56fdb2841dd8ed7e34f69a027346b98929793e5930a1; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:21:25.461Z.