Delta Bravo Sierra Bell 206L 3 accident
Bell 206L 3 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Garfield County Regional Airport (RIL) to Garfield County Regional Airport (RIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA122
- 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
- 3 · 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 206L 3
- 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
- N207DS
- Operator
- Delta Bravo Sierra
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Garfield County Regional Airport (RIL), Rifle, COTo Garfield County Regional Airport (RIL), Rifle, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1991)
- 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
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- 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 purpose of the flight was to perform low-level aerial surveillance of power transmission lines using an external gimbal-mounted infrared camera to detect problems with the patrolled power lines. While patrolling above a power line that passed through a valley, the helicopter struck another power line that crossed perpendicular to the helicopter's flightpath and was at a higher elevation than the patrolled power line and ran from poles mounted atop higher terrain. The struck power line was not marked with high-visibility balls nor was it required to be. The sun was directly in front of the helicopter and 30 degrees above the horizon at the time of the accident, which likely made it difficult for the pilot to see the crossing wire. Postaccident examination of the helicopter did not reveal any preimpact anomalies. Given that this was a low-level surveillance flight of power transmission lines, the pilot should have familiarized himself with the power lines he was going to patrol and any other wires or obstructions in the area before the flight. It is likely that he did not adequately plan for the flight and that, if he had, he might have been aware of the power line and been able to avoid it.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight planning for a low-level aerial surveillance flight of power transmission lines, which led to his being unaware of the crossing power line while flying toward the sun and his subsequent failure to maintain sufficient clearance from the wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA122
- Event ID
- 20140127X44720
- Case number
- CEN14FA122
- 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: bf7280ae866a1f8f2c041641568333f6202fd43be993ce29abe036f0c3f06cee; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:10:05.354Z.