LAX01FA006 · McDonnell Douglas 369E
McDonnell Douglas 369E · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From BIG CREEK, CA (no airport) to Ontario International Airport (ONT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01FA006
- 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
McDonnell Douglas 369E
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 369
- 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
- N819CE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From BIG CREEK, CA (no airport)To Ontario International Airport (ONT), Ontario, CA
- 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
- 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
- Door, passenger › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Security of cargo, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter rolled over during an emergency landing following a severe vibration and loss of antitorque control. The pilot stated that he was descending from 7,500 feet msl with an indicated airspeed of 125 knots in mountainous terrain and light turbulence. The first indication of trouble was a loud snap sound from the rear of the helicopter, followed by violent airframe vibrations. The pilot reported that there were no unusual vibrations in any of the controls. He made a right turn to land on the best available terrain. As the turn was completed, antitorque control was lost, and the helicopter began a series of rapid clockwise spins. The helicopter spun at least three times before impact. Examination of the helicopter revealed a torsional failure of the tail rotor drive shaft at 8 inches forward of the aft Kamatics coupling. This failure is consistent with a tail rotor sudden stoppage. Leading edge tail rotor blade damage was observed to both blades, with red and blue color and material transfers evident. Examination of the tail rotor blade leading edges by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectrometer of the accumulation revealed the material to be of a cellophane base. The pilot reported that prior to departure from Big Creek, he placed a red and blue checkered shirt contained in a plastic bag on the rear seat with other personal baggage. He speculated that during his descent from 7,500 feet, he had experienced some turbulence and the left rear door may have popped open. Neither the bag nor the shirt was recovered at the accident site.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper storage of personal items and his inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in the unlatching of the left rear cabin door during flight and allowing a plastic garment bag to blow out and strike the tail rotor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01FA006
- Event ID
- 20001212X22178
- Case number
- LAX01FA006
- 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 2000-10-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dab5588b03d8ba1adb101ed176f79140d2acd921b42c5ba12a0b201b035bd538; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:04:03.878Z.