LAX96FA310 · Bell/Tsirah 209AH-1FT
West Coast Helicopters Bell/Tsirah 209AH-1FT · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96FA310
- 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
- 1 · 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
Bell/Tsirah 209AH-1FT
- Aircraft type
- Bell/tsirah 209
- 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
- N777TZ
- Operator
- West Coast Helicopters
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The civilian restored U.S. Army Cobra attack helicopter was filming a commercial. Production personnel reported the helicopter made three flights over the area; a nonfilmed overview flight and two filmed flights. The filming director said that the helicopter was to fly between and over two rock outcroppings and chase a ground vehicle. On the first flight the helicopter hovered south of the western rock outcropping and then flew over it in a northerly direction descending toward the ground vehicle. On this initial flight, the timing between the helicopter and the ground vehicle was inadequate due to blowing sand. The director then instructed the helicopter pilot to hover further south of the rock outcroppings and for the ground vehicle driver to begin his sequence earlier. On the second flight, the helicopter flew in a northeasterly direction at a lower altitude when the pilot made a slight left turn. During the turn, the helicopter's main rotor blades struck the rock outcropping located to the left side and immediately began to separate. The rotor blades decelerated and the helicopter struck the ground in a nose-up level attitude.
Probable cause
the first pilot misjudged the distance from the rock outcropping. The pilot's ostentatious display was a factor in this accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96FA310
- Event ID
- 20001208X06541
- Case number
- LAX96FA310
- 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: 44ce7453d06a29e8e94d059a3d3f53a575b9ab606eb3fd2c95225bb2bb5cd88c; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:13:13.806Z.