WPR26LA086 · Bell 206L-3
Weyerhaeuser NR Bell 206L-3 · Accident during initial climb
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA086
- 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 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
- N868H
- Operator
- Weyerhaeuser NR
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1989)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an aerial application reconnaissance flight, the helicopter departed with a fertilizer bucket attached which was held on by three nylon lines. As the helicopter lifted off and climbed out, the pilot noticed initially that all three nylon lines were hanging downward and moving appropriately with the bucket. The pilot continued to climb out and turned slightly to the right, away from obstacles. However, at this time, the pilot realized that the helicopter was not responding correctly to his flight control inputs. Looking in the mirror, he noticed that the bucket was hanging at a 45° angle and that one of the nylon lines connected to the bucket was wrapped over the right front skid and up against the cross-tube. The helicopter remained in a constant right turn and the pilot struggled to maintain control. He then attempted to release the bucket, but subsequently the helicopter impacted terrain and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and main rotor blades. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical anomalies or malfunctions that could have precluded normal operation. He further stated that the nylon lines used to secure the bucket were lighter weight than the steel cable lines normally used and moved substantially in the airflow.
Probable cause
The inadvertent entanglement of a long line with the skid, which resulted in a loss of flight control. Contributing to the accident was the use of nylon lines instead of steel cables to secure the bucket.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA086
- Event ID
- 20260120202320
- Case number
- WPR26LA086
- 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: e9848b4ee9819074c972995604b4b834cf7574b19379d03a756203f0beaabc58; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:40:58.864Z.