GAA16CA071 · Bell 206 B
Silla Bell 206 B · Accident: roll over during takeoff
From Christmas Island, PO to Christmas Island, PO
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA071
- 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 206 B
- 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
- N1060C
- Operator
- Silla
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Christmas Island, POTo Christmas Island, PO
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1971)
- 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
- 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
- Roll over
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was operating from the deck of a fishing vessel. When the helicopter is not in use, it is secured to the deck by four straps secured to the skids of the helicopter.
The pilot of the helicopter reported that he entered the helicopter for takeoff while the mechanic removed the tie downs from the helicopter. The pilot reported that when he tried to takeoff, one of the tie downs was still attached to the helicopter and the helicopter rolled to the right and impacted the helipad. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor, mast, and tail boom.
The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection and the maintenance crew's failure to remove the tie down.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA071
- Event ID
- 20151209X92855
- Case number
- GAA16CA071
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8277d1506dfa1d777fc71a0a73545d2213c213e446a03f569f5624f2888d9a68; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:01:13.360Z.