CEN22LA009 · Bell 206 B3
Louisiana Department of Public Safety Bell 206 B3 · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness on approach
From Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA009
- 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
- Government
- 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 B3
- 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
- N373SP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR), Baton Rouge, LATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 tail rotor effectiveness
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot entered the traffic pattern for landing at the end of a short cross-country flight in the helicopter. During the downwind leg, he completed the before landing checks and observed no abnormalities with the helicopter.
According to the student pilot, he was on final approach at 40 knots and 175 ft above ground level when the helicopter started to yaw to the right. The student pilot applied left pedal, but the helicopter continued to yaw to the right. The student pilot observed the trim indicator and confirmed that the helicopter was in trim. Shortly thereafter, the helicopter “aggressively” yawed to the right. The student pilot applied forward cyclic input, and the helicopter rolled to the left while it continued to rotate rapidly to the right. The student pilot attempted to regain control using cyclic input; however, he was unable due to the high rotation rate. The student pilot decreased the throttle to idle; the helicopter began to settle; and he applied collective input to cushion the landing. The helicopter landed hard about 200 ft short of the approach end of the runway. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor system, the fuselage, the tail boom, and the tail rotor system. A postaccident examination of the airframe and the engine revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation of the helicopter. A review of meteorological data at the accident airport showed the wind speed was about 5 knots or less with the direction shifting from a right crosswind to a left crosswind on the landing runway around the time of the accident. It is likely that while on final approach with a low airspeed, the helicopter lost translational lift, which resulted in increased power demand and additional anti-torque requirements. The helicopter began a right yaw and the student pilot allowed a yaw rate to build, at which point he was unable to successfully arrest the yaw rate, and a loss of tail rotor effectiveness and helicopter control occurred.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to compensate for an unanticipated right yaw, which resulted in a loss of tail rotor effectiveness and helicopter control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA009
- Event ID
- 20211007104067
- Case number
- CEN22LA009
- 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, 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: 77ffd9c83bdd4886f5a8eaff4fde15075e255423b5e9de19088f10eb55262a1f; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:38:34.488Z.