LAX96FA185 · Robinson R22
Robinson R22 · Accident: hard landing
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96FA185
- 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
Robinson R22
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R22
- 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
- N9070N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Distance/altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not attained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Santa Ana, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
Both pilots were practicing full touchdown autorotations while in the traffic pattern. The second pilot made three successful touchdown autorotations and takeoffs. The first pilot assumed the controls after the second pilot completed the third autorotation. On final approach, the first pilot decelerated the helicopter and increased the glide angle to the runway. He then attempted to decrease the glide angle when it became evident that he was going to land short. The first pilot attempted to arrest the rate of descent, but without success. He was able to level the helicopter before it struck the ground. A ground witness said that the helicopter decelerated and then nosed over. The descent rate was between 1,000 to 2,000 feet per minute, and the main rotor rpm was at 100 percent throughout the sequence of events. The first pilot said he could not recall if the engine responded to his throttle inputs. Postaccident examination disclosed no evidence of any preexisting airframe or engine malfunctions or failures.
Probable cause
the pilot misjudged the helicopter's distance and altitude and failed to attain the proper descent rate.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96FA185
- Event ID
- 20001208X05598
- Case number
- LAX96FA185
- 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 1996-05-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 324eb89b75fe7738670692ec2070cac1948bb43bd7dc89f9016994f581780ce8; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:47:24.455Z.