ERA21LA126 · Bell 206 B
Roma Air Bell 206 B · Accident while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA126
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N820H
- Operator
- Roma Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2008)
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been performing low-altitude agricultural operations for about two hours when he heard an aural “chirp” with no associated caution panel lights. After scanning the instruments, he observed nothing abnormal, then immediately the low rotor rpm horn sounded, and the helicopter started to lose altitude as the rotor speed decayed. He briefly observed a red engine light on the instrument panel, and initiated an autorotation from an altitude about 50 ft above the ground and airspeed of about 35 knots. The helicopter landed hard on uneven terrain and rolled over; a post-crash fire ensued. The pilot and passenger egressed without injury. Although examination of the engine and its recovered components revealed no evidence of preaccident mechanical anomalies, the extent of the impact and thermal damage precluded a thorough examination, and the reason for the loss of rotor rpm could not be determined based on the available information.
Probable cause
A loss of main rotor rpm for reasons that could not be determined, which resulted in an autorotation and a subsequent hard landing and rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA126
- Event ID
- 20210208102611
- Case number
- ERA21LA126
- 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, cause areas. 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: b115ddfbd3de3ee630bd21636c51240924062d1b81fcf4c81e73f436ffcb77e2; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:37:13.474Z.