LAX95LA318 · Hiller UH-12E
Hiller UH-12E · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From 0M9 · Delhi, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA318
- 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-12E
- 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
- N4027D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 0M9 · Delhi, CATo 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 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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 blade › Fatigue
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS SPRAYING A TOMATO FIELD WHEN A STRONG VIBRATION STARTED THROUGH THE AIRFRAME, FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY A SEVERE YAW. PEDAL INPUT HAD NO EFFECT ON THE YAW AND THE HELICOPTER BEGAN TO SPIN. THE PILOT REDUCED POWER AND LOWERED THE COLLECTIVE TO STOP THE YAW AND THE HELICOPTER LANDED HARD. AN FAA AIRWORTHINESS INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE WRECKAGE AT THE ACCIDENT SITE. ONE TAIL ROTOR BLADE WAS MISSING AND SUBSEQUENTLY FOUND ABOUT 100 FEET AWAY. THE INSPECTOR REPORTED THAT THE TENSION TORSION (TT) PLATES OF THE SEPARATED BLADE WERE BROKEN AT THE HUB ATTACH BOLTS. NO LEADING EDGE DAMAGE WAS OBSERVED ON THE BLADE. THE FRACTURED TT PLATES WERE SENT TO THE NTSB LAB WHERE REPRESENTATIVE PLATE FRACTURES WERE SELECTED FOR DETAILED EXAMINATION. FEATURES TYPICAL OF PROGRESSIVE FATIGUE CRACKING WERE OBSERVED. A MATERIAL ANALYSIS REVEALED THAT THE STRAPS WERE MADE FROM THE MANUFACTURER'S SPECIFIED MATERIAL. NO EVIDENCE OF FOREIGN ELEMENT CONTAMINATION WAS FOUND ON THE FRACTURE FACES. THE TAIL ROTOR TT BAR HAS A 12,500-HOUR LIFE LIMIT AND THE FRACTURED TT BAR HAD ACCUMULATED A TOTAL TIME IN SERVICE OF 3,710 HOURS. NO PRIOR INCIDENTS WERE FOUND IN THE FAA SERVICE DIFFICULTY REPORT DATA BASE.
Probable cause
the fatigue failure of the tail rotor tension torsion bar plates.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA318
- Event ID
- 20001207X04517
- Case number
- LAX95LA318
- 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: a355db123cbe117ac928bdef79ccae47debce81ab50cf033de55c622d1c01322; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:19:34.364Z.