LAX99LA238 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: vortex turbulence encountered on approach
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to NPS
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA238
- 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
Cessna 150M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N63614
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), HITo NPS
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Flight into adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Unsafe/hazardous condition warning, disregarded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On the downwind leg of the traffic pattern for the joint civil/military airport, the instructor saw a Navy UH3H helicopter on the base leg to the same runway. The CTAF operator cautioned them about wake turbulence. The student asked if he should extend the downwind, but the instructor advised him to just stay above the helicopter's flight path. The instructor said that while turning to the base leg, they could see that the helicopter was still on the runway. On short final approach nearing the runway, the instructor announced their position on the CTAF. The helicopter remained on the runway, so the instructor advised the student to go around. At that point, the airplane was slightly past the runway threshold and the helicopter was about 2,500 feet down the 4,000-foot runway. The instructor stated that as the student initiated the go-around, the aircraft encountered some turbulence, and rolled 90 degrees to the right. The instructor then noticed the helicopter lifting off the ground. He took over the controls but had difficulty maintaining control of the aircraft. He stated that he attempted to fly out of the rotor wash, but didn't have sufficient altitude to maneuver safely. The airplane sank onto its right wing, bounced, and landed on the nose gear, which then collapsed. The airport is an auxiliary landing field for a naval air station. According to the airport facility directory, civil operations were permitted, but limited to daylight VFR conditions, and all aircraft must conform to the traffic pattern and CTAF advisories.
Probable cause
The airplane's encounter with turbulent air from the rotor wash of a large military helicopter, which resulted from the instructor's decision to continue the approach while the helicopter was on the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA238
- Event ID
- 20001212X19045
- Case number
- LAX99LA238
- 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: 478ab022b1823b80e74efb1e8120e14ac5806896123d5037b815a4bde5140c6e; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:43:09.588Z.