LAX93FA369 · Robinson R22 BETA
Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Brackett Field (POC) to French Valley Airport (F70)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93FA369
- 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
- 2 · 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 BETA
- 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
- N40049
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brackett Field (POC), La Verne, CATo French Valley Airport (F70), Murrieta, CA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 › Equipment, other, improper use of
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Foreign object damage
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES HEARD TWO BANG NOISES FOLLOWED BY THE HELICOPTER SHEDDING DEBRIS. THE HELICOPTER THEN BEGAN TO SPIN TO THE RIGHT, AND DESCENDED UNCONTROLLED UNTIL COLLIDING WITH THE GROUND. THE TAIL ROTOR GEAR BOX, TAIL ROTOR BLADES, AND VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL STABILIZER SEPARATED BEFORE THE HELICOPTER IMPACTED THE GROUND. THE LEFT DOOR OF THE HELICOPTER WAS REMOVED FOR THE FLIGHT. AN ALUMINUM KNEE BOARD, BELONGING TO THE PILOT, WAS FOUND OUTSIDE THE HELICOPTER NEAR ONE OF THE TAIL ROTOR BLADES. IT EXHIBITED IMPACT DAMAGE AND PAINT TRANSFER CONSISTENT WITH THE COLOR OF THE TAIL ROTOR BLADES. THE TIP OF ONE OF THE TAIL ROTOR BLADES EXHIBITED DAMAGE ON THE LEADING EDGE CONSISTENT WITH STRIKING A METALLIC OBJECT.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE TAIL ROTOR BLADE AFTER BEING STRUCK BY THE PILOT'S KNEE BOARD, AND THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ADEQUATELY SECURE THE KNEE BOARD WHILE IN FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93FA369
- Event ID
- 20001211X13417
- Case number
- LAX93FA369
- 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: 3821642329286c68e9974fc5ff4507c2724771f04ef1975607ffbf01869eb07e; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:22:41.550Z.