LAX91LA217 · Farrington 18A
Novo Helicopter Farrington 18A · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA217
- 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
Farrington 18A
- Aircraft type
- Farrington 18
- Category
- Gyroplane
- 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
- N6126S
- Operator
- Novo Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED ATP PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD COMPLETED A NORMAL CHECKLIST. HE STATED THERE WAS A NORMAL SPIN UP ON THE RUNWAY AND ROTOR RPM WAS ATTAINED WITH NO SIGN OF GROUND RESONANCE. EVERYTHING WAS NORMAL ON TAKEOFF RUN TO 30 KNOTS. AT 31 KNOTS THE PILOT PROCEEDED TO PREPOSITION STICK TO THE LEFT AND PUSH LIFT BUTTON. THE AIRCRAFT ENCOUNTERED VIOLENT GROUND RESONANCE SIMULTANEOUSLY AT LIFT OFF. GYROPLANE CONTINUED SHAKING VIOLENTLY AND SWERVED TO THE LEFT COLLIDING WITH THE GROUND. THE PILOT STATED TO THE FAA HE WAS UNSURE WHETHER OR NOT HE HAD ACTUALLY PRESSED THE ENGAGE SWITCH OR THAT HE HAD BECOME AIRBORNE.
Probable cause
GROUND RESONANCE REMEDIAL ACTION NOT PERFORMED BY THE PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA217
- Event ID
- 20001212X17047
- Case number
- LAX91LA217
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-05-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b06f571fc7c8015196fc19811ab8ef3af335f2009dd04face34fd1a23fe0ad40; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:11:25.408Z.