LAX99LA284 · Aerospatiale AS350B3
Aerospatiale AS350B3 · Accident: in flight collision with object while taxiing
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA284
- 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
Aerospatiale AS350B3
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS350
- 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
- N5224R
- Operator
- American Eurocopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
- 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
- Taxi · aerial
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that a linesman directed him toward the center one of three transient parking helipads next to a small perimeter fence. All three helipads were empty. As he approached the pad, the pilot became concerned about obstructions and about exposing his tail rotor to a taxiway beyond his view. He performed a left pedal turn over the pad to bring the nose around to face the taxiway. He reported that the linesman made a 'hands-down motion' and walked away. The pilot assumed he was clear to touchdown. As he touched down, the tail rotor contacted the helipad's perimeter fence. The nose of the helicopter yawed left and the pilot performed a hovering autorotation. The tail rotor blades were destroyed and the tail boom was buckled. The distance from the center of the helipad parking space to the fence was measured at 23 feet. The distance from the main rotor mast to the end of the tail stinger on the AS350B3 is just over 23 feet. According to the parking space requirements outlined by FAA A/C 150/5390-2A, the fence was supposed to be no closer than 10 feet to any part of the helicopter. The fence was found to be within the tail rotor clearance area specified in the Advisory Circular. There was insufficient room for the helicopter to make a 180-degree turn, assuming it stayed on the center point of the parking space.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain clearance with the fence while landing. A factor was the failure of the helipad to meet the obstacle clearance design criteria specified in FAA Advisory Circular guidance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA284
- Event ID
- 20001212X19567
- Case number
- LAX99LA284
- 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: cadf7a9b8bb8ce869b533b581d6744b68fe424a02468927302bc11e6071b9d2c; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:15:07.770Z.