LAX95GA264 · McDonnell Douglas 369D
McDonnell Douglas 369D · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From HI (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95GA264
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
McDonnell Douglas 369D
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 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
- N1090S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HI (no airport)To 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FIRE DEPARTMENT HELICOPTER PILOT WAS FLYING WITHOUT AN OBSERVER. HE WAS INSERTING TWO POLICE OFFICERS WHO WERE IN A RESCUE NET 50 FEET BELOW THE HELICOPTER, INTO MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN TO SEARCH FOR A MISSING HIKER. DETERIORATING WEATHER AND CLOUD COVER WITH TURBULENCE WAS PRESENT. GROUND PERSONNEL WARNED THE PILOT THREE TIMES OF THE DETERIORATING CONDITIONS. A WITNESS STATED THAT THE HELICOPTER WAS PARTIALLY IN THE CLOUDS BUT THE NET WAS IN THE CLEAR. HIKERS IN A CANYON NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE OBSERVED THE NET SWINGING LIKE A PENDULUM THROUGH AN ARC OF 45 TO 50 DEGREES. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE LINE WHICH SECURED THE NET TO THE HELICOPTER BECAME ENTANGLED WITH THE MAIN ROTOR AND WAS FOUND WRAPPED AROUND THE MAIN ROTOR MAST AND ALL THE MAIN ROTOR PITCH CHANGE LINKS WERE FACTURED. THE HELICOPTER PILOT'S FIRE DEPARTMENT RECORDS INDICATED HE HAD 511 HOURS OF HELICOPTER TIME WITH 2500 HOURS OF FIXED WING TIME. RECORDS WERE RECOVERED TO DOCUMENT ABOUT 261 HOURS OF ACTUAL HELICOPTER TIME. THE PILOT HAD RECEIVED ABOUT 50 HOURS OF DUAL INSTRUCTION FROM THE FIRE DEPARTMENT CHIEF PILOT IN THEIR TYPE OF OPERATIONS.
Probable cause
the pilot's poor judgement by intentionally flying into adverse weather conditions in mountainous terrain with an external load and no observer which resulted in loss of aircraft control. Factors were pressure from the conditions/events and a lack of total experience in the type of operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95GA264
- Event ID
- 20001207X03984
- Case number
- LAX95GA264
- 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: investigation status. 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: ee7ea402d9ef0ee211d8cd626d6e0e555794fb6f224e6331d7b2b6bdef28f5b5; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:41:37.584Z.