What happened
On April 26, a Bell 206B helicopter departed Mould Bay Airport in the Northwest Territories for a scheduled flight to Sachs Harbour and Inuvik. The mission, chartered by a polar research company, involved retrieving sea buoys and relocating an ice camp. The pilot was expected to rendezvous with a Twin Otter aircraft at a fuel cache near Mercy Bay at approximately 0900 MST.
When the helicopter failed to arrive at the rendezvous point, a search was initiated by the Twin Otter crew. Investigators later discovered burned and scattered wreckage on sea ice roughly nine miles south of the Mould Bay weather station. A ground team reached the site later that afternoon and confirmed the wreckage belonged to the missing aircraft. The pilot sustained one fatality.
The investigation
The investigation examined the aircraft's maintenance, the pilot's training, and the environmental conditions at the time of the accident. The Bell 206B was found to be properly certified, equipped, and maintained according to regulations. The pilot, who had approximately 1,500 hours of flight experience, was highly familiar with the Arctic environment but lacked an instrument rating or endorsement for night flight. His training records showed only 10.6 hours of dual instrument training.
Investigators analyzed the wreckage trail, which indicated the aircraft was in a left-banked, nose-down attitude when it struck the ice. The impact caused extensive airframe disintegration and a subsequent fire. While the automated weather observation system (AWOS) at Mould Bay reported clear conditions, eyewitnesses and personnel at the weather station reported much lower visibility and overcast skies. The investigation determined the AWOS was not accurately recording the actual conditions.
Findings
- The pilot lost control of the aircraft after flying into weather conditions that likely produced a whiteout.
- The loss of visual reference led to spatial disorientation, a common hazard when flying over featureless snow and ice.
- The pilot had limited experience in instrument flight, making him more susceptible to disorientation when visual cues vanished.
- The use of GPS for direct navigation may have encouraged the pilot to continue into marginal weather, a phenomenon known as risk compensation.
- The pilot may have been distracted by tuning the high-frequency radio at the time of the accident.
- The emergency locator transmitter (ELT) failed to transmit due to damage sustained during the impact.