LAX89FA136 · Aerospatiale AS-355-F
Care Aerospatiale AS-355-F · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Modesto, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89FA136
- 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 AS-355-F
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-355
- 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
- N84MH
- Operator
- Care
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Modesto, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE EMERG MED SVC (EMS/MEDIVAC) FLT DEPARTED MODESTO HOSPITAL TO TRANSPORT A PATIENT FROM BEAR VALLEY, CA. THE PILOT MADE AN APCH TO THE BEAR VALLEY STOLPORT FROM THE SOUTH-SOUTHWEST. ELEV OF THE STOLPORT WAS 7073'. DRG THE APCH AT SLOW SPEED, THE HELICOPTER BEGAN TO YAW TO THE LEFT. THE PLT APPLIED RGT PEDAL, BUT TO NO AVAIL. HE LOWERED THE NOSE TO BEGIN A GO-AROUND, BUT THE YAW BEGAN TO ACCELERATE. THE PLT THEN SHUT DOWN BOTH ENGS & MADE AN AUTOROTATION. JUST BEFORELANDING, LOOSE SNOW WAS BLOWN UP & WHITEOUT CONDITIONS OCCURRED. DRG TOUCHDOWN, THE HELICOPTER PITCHED FORWARD INTO A SNOWBANK & WAS DAMAGED. THE PLT RPRTD THE WIND WAS LIGHT & VARIABLE. A SHERIFF'S DEPUTY RPRTD THE WIND WAS FROM THE SOUTH/SOUTHWEST AT 5 TO 10 KTS. THE INVESTGATION REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF A TAIL ROTOR DRIVE MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE.
Probable cause
IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL DURING A SLOW SPEED, DOWNWIND APPROACH TO A HIGH ALTITUDE STOLPORT. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE: HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE, TAILWIND, IMPROPER WEATHER EVALUATION BY THE PILOT, SNOW COVERED TERRAIN, WHITEOUT CONDITIONS BEFORE TOUCHDOWN, AND THE SNOWBANK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89FA136
- Event ID
- 20001213X27910
- Case number
- LAX89FA136
- 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: c3f617080322c37c952303cadb9d8d52da7b36d91e13ec37dea664d9c53290f4; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:46:35.893Z.