LAX98LA021 · Revolution MINI-500
Revolution MINI-500 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA021
- 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
Revolution MINI-500
- Aircraft type
- Revolution MINI-500
- 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
- N7234Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB)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
- Initial climb
- 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 engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
- Rotor RPM › Low
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After taking off, the helicopter had climbed about 250 to 300 feet, when the engine abruptly lost power. The pilot attempted an autorotation, but said he was able to maintain only 80 percent rotor rpm, which was insufficient to prevent a hard landing. The pilot reported that the main rotor low pitch stop had recently been changed from -1.8 degree to -0.5 degree, as recommended by a factory representative. Also, the pilot stated that he was aware of a phenomenon called 'cold-freeze' (engine seizure without over temp) that (according to him) had occurred with other engines of this make/modle. He believed there was a possible engine seizure and that reduced settings of the rotor low pitch stops could have resulted in low rotor rpm. No preimpact mechanical problem was found that would have resulted in loss of engine power.
Probable cause
loss of engine power and low rotor rpm for undeterminted reasons. The factory representative's recommendation to reduce the main rotor low pitch stop (from -1.8 degree to -0.5 degree) may have been a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA021
- Event ID
- 20001208X09065
- Case number
- LAX98LA021
- 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: 0e9ec2b76bc75d7805b783902e4f3bff6ee9587c3cee1a4cbd101c31693b74f6; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:45:59.235Z.