LAX94LA285 · Hughes 369HS
Hughes 369HS · Accident: rotor failure/malfunction while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA285
- 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
Hughes 369HS
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 369
- 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
- N9242F
- Operator
- Roland Virissimo, SR
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Rotor failure/malfunction
- 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
- Rotor system, tail rotor › Failure, total
- Rotor system, tail rotor › Undetermined
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS ORBITING THE FISHING VESSEL WHEN HE HEARD A LOUD 'BANG.' HE SAID THE AIRCRAFT PITCHED FORWARD AND BEGAN AN UNCOMMANDED SPIN TO THE RIGHT. HE LOWERED COLLECTIVE AND INITIATED AN EMERGENCY AUTOROTATION TO THE WATER. HE HAD DIFFICULTY IN MAINTAINING CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT AND THE AIRCRAFT LANDED HARD. A POSTACCIDENT INSPECTION REVEALED THE ANTI-TORQUE ROTOR AND HUB WERE MISSING FROM THE AIRCRAFT. WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THEY SAW THE ANTI-TORQUE BLADES AND HUB SEPARATE AS A UNIT JUST PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HIS PREVIOUS INSPECTIONS HAD NOT DETECTED ANY INDICATIONS OF A VOID ON EITHER BLADE, AND THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS IN COMPLIANCE WITH APPLICABLE AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVES AND SERVICE INFORMATION NOTICES. A LABORATORY INSPECTION OF THE REMAINING PORTION OF THE ANTI-TORQUE SYSTEM GEARBOX FAILED TO REVEAL ANY INDICATIONS OF PREEXISTING CRACKS ON THE FRACTURE.
Probable cause
AN IN FLIGHT FAILURE AND SEPARATION OF THE TAIL ROTOR FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA285
- Event ID
- 20001206X01780
- Case number
- LAX94LA285
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-07-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c7783569b3ff25c4929e893c0c9dcc5b17cae94eef1190452fd8289247016f3a; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:34:55.989Z.