LAX92FA410 · Robinson R22-B
Helicopter Adventures Robinson R22-B · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person en route
From Buchanan Field (CCR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92FA410
- 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-B
- 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
- N8069X
- Operator
- Helicopter Adventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CATo 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
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR AND A PROSPECTIVE STUDENT DEPARTED FOR A SHORT HELICOPTER DEMONSTRATION FLIGHT IN CLEAR VFR CONDITIONS. THREE MINUTES AFTER DEPARTURE, THE HELICOPTER WAS OVER-FLYING AN URBAN PARK AREA, ABOUT 1 AND 1/2 MILES WEST OF THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. WITNESSES HEARD POPPING, BANGING, AND THUMPING NOISES. THE ENGINE THEN QUIT RUNNING. THE MAIN ROTOR DEPARTED ITS NORMAL PLANE OF ROTATION WITH SUFFICIENT RPM TO CONTACT THE RIGHT FRONT PORTION OF THE COCKPIT WINDSHIELD AND STRIKE THE RIGHT SEAT PASSENGER. MAIN ROTOR RPM THEN IMMEDIATELY DECAYED AND STOPPED. THE HELICOPTER WAS THEN OBSERVED IN A STEEP NOSE DOWN ANGLE OF DESCENT UNTIL IMPACTING THE GROUND. NO MALFUNCTION OF THE ENGINE, DRIVE TRAIN, OR FLIGHT CONTROLS WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
AN UNDETERMINED DIVERGENCE OF THE MAIN ROTOR FROM ITS NORMAL PLANE OF ROTATION WHICH RESULTED IN ROTOR CONTACT TO THE FUSELAGE AND PASSENGER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92FA410
- Event ID
- 20001211X15708
- Case number
- LAX92FA410
- 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: cd7fc09e6afe1e37a90ad961749ea5d97eaeff50b25138c959b51ea0501afbec; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:53:46.016Z.