WPR21LA133 · Bell 206 L3
Redlands Heliflight Bell 206 L3 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Lucerne Valley, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR21LA133
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 L3
- 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
- N6133C
- Operator
- Redlands Heliflight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lucerne Valley, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 30 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 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 control in flight
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- 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 pilot reported that he departed from a dry lakebed with the intention of making a local flight for the passenger to photograph the area. He noted that the wind was from the southwest between 12-15 kts. After departure, the pilot was maneuvering the helicopter to the southeast about 300 ft above ground level (agl), where he was using the helicopter controls to compensate for a tailwind. The helicopter began to yaw to the right and the pilot attempted to regain control by applying full left pedal. Despite his attempts, the helicopter continued to rotate, and the yaw rate was increasing in speed. The helicopter descended and when it neared the ground, the pilot flared to cushion the touchdown for the rapid descent rate. The tail collided with the ground, followed by the skids contacting the desert floor hard; the helicopter came to rest on its right side. The fuselage and tail boom were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering with a tailwind, resulting in the helicopter spinning and colliding with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR21LA133
- Event ID
- 20210316102763
- Case number
- WPR21LA133
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, 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: 9db40caa78221b76865cbf30e4b3d96b3b061e196aae8b3c71e538e753d100d5; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:49:53.736Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The San Bernardino County community is Lucerne Valley, as the same record's location field spells it; the departure label drops the 'e'.