LAX95LA238 · Hiller UH-12C
Whirlybirds Hiller UH-12C · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From O88 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA238
- 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
Hiller UH-12C
- Aircraft type
- Hiller UH-12
- 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
- N1348Z
- Operator
- Whirlybirds
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O88To 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 · hover in ground effect
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor cable › Chafed
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor cable › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUCTOR WAS PERFORMING A LOW RPM RECOVERY WHEN THE AIRCRAFT BEGAN AN UNCOMMANDED YAW TO THE RIGHT. HE ATTEMPTED TO CONTROL THE AIRCRAFT BY APPLYING FULL LEFT ANTI-TORQUE PEDAL, BUT IT HAD NO EFFECT ON THE YAW. HE LOWERED COLLECTIVE AND THE AIRCRAFT TOUCHED DOWN HARD, REBOUNDED, AND CONTINUED TO YAW RIGHT. HE APPLIED LEFT CYCLIC AND ROLLED OFF THE THROTTLE AND TOUCHED DOWN AGAIN. AN INSPECTION REVEALED THAT THE LEFT ANTI-TORQUE CONTROL CABLE HAD SEPARATED. A LABORATORY EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT FAILURE WAS DUE TO SEVERE WEAR. THE CABLE HAD CHAFED NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THE STARTER. THE CABLE WAS IN AN AREA THAT COULD BE INSPECTED DURING A PREFLIGHT INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT.
Probable cause
The result of a chafing failure of the left anti-torque control cable while the aircraft was in flight. An inadequate preflight inspection by the pilot-in-command, and an inadequate 100-hour inspection by company maintenance personnel were factors in this accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA238
- Event ID
- 20001207X03992
- Case number
- LAX95LA238
- 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: be23a07f370c75f1b18570ee055991ee4439aeaaf40035f69c547b16662601d9; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:42:17.798Z.