LAX92LA274 · Grumman G-164A
San Joaquin Helicopters Grumman G-164A · Accident: fire en route
From Delano Municipal Airport (DLO) to DLO
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA274
- 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
Grumman G-164A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-164
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N8636H
- Operator
- San Joaquin Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delano Municipal Airport (DLO), Delano, CATo DLO
- 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
- 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
- Fire
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Company/operator management › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Miscellaneous
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES SAW THE ACFT APCH THE ACDNT SITE AT LOW ALT TRAILING A HVY VOLUME OF SPRAY OR SMOKE. THE ACFT SUDDENLY ALTERED COURSE, AND THE PLT SEEMED TO BE TURNING TO LND ON A ROAD. SOME WITNESSES SAID THEY SAW FLAMES COMING FM THE ENG COMPARTMENT AREA; OTRS SAID THE ENG 'BURST INTO FLAMES' WHILE THE ACFT WAS AIRBORNE. AS THE ACFT TURNED TWD THE ROAD, IT COLLIDED WITH PWR LINES & CRASHED. A POST-CRASH FIRE CONSUMED THE ACFT. AN EXAM OF THE ENG, WHICH SEPD FM THE FUSELAGE DRG IMPACT, REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF A FIRE. ALL HOSES WERE NOTED TO BE INTACT. THE WOODEN HOPPER DOOR HAD SEPD FM THE FUSELAGE & IT WAS FND ALONG THE FLT PATH. IT WAS FND HEAVILY CHARRED ON THE INTERIOR SIDE WITH NO EVIDENCE OF FIRE ON THE EXTERIOR SIDE. RECORDS SHOWED THE ACFT HAD BEEN LOADED WITH POTASSIUM PERMANGANATE AFTER SULFUR HAD BEEN HAULED ON A PREVIOUS FLT. CHEMICAL MANUFACTURER RPRTD THAT POTASSIUM PERMANGANATE WAS AN OXIDIZER, WHICH WAS REACTIVE WITH EVEN SMALL AMOUNTS OF SULFUR.
Probable cause
AN INFLIGHT HOPPER COMPARTMENT FIRE DUE TO THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF THE CHEMICAL LOADS, AND, THE FAILURE OF THE OPERATOR FOLLOW THE CAUTIONARY DIRECTIVES OF THE CHEMICAL MANUFACTURER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA274
- Event ID
- 20001211X15176
- Case number
- LAX92LA274
- 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: a66acb778fa8ce6a05c9f559e1269fb2d9090b16c6dde226f70dfe163f89e975; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:04:18.022Z.