LAX86LA143 · Aerospatiale AS-350D
Aerospatiale AS-350D · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From FREE PEAK, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86LA143
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-350D
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale AS-350
- 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
- N88GT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FREE PEAK, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not attained
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not possible
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Vertical takeoff, not possible
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Tahoe Valley, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER COLLIDED WITH TREES AND CRASHED IN ROUGH MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN DURING TAKEOFF. THE ACFT WAS SHUTTLING SKIERS FROM A LANDING AREA LOCATED AT APPROXIMATELY 8,300 FT MLS TO A RIDGELINE AT 11,000 FT MSL. THE PLT REPORTED THE EGT (T-4) WAS AT 790 DEG (C), OVER THE TAKEOFF 5 MIN LIMITATION. THE PLT ATTEMPTED A NORMAL TAKEOFF. AS THE ACFT REACHED AN ALT ABOVE THE 80 FT TALL TREES BELOW TRANSLATIONAL LIFT, IT SHUDDERED THEN SPUN COUNTERCLOCKWISE. THE OGE MAXIMUM RECOMMENDED WEIGHT WAS COMPUTER AT 1,812 KILOGRAMS OR 3,995.5 LBS. THE WEIGHT CALCULATED BY THE PLT AFTER THE ACCIDENT WAS 3,995 LBS. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT WEIGHT AND BALANCE RECORDS REVEALED THAT COMPONENTS WERE INSTALLED ON THE ACFT AFTER IT HAD BEEN WEIGHED. THE PLT DID NOT INCLUDE ALL THE ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS IN HIS CALCULATIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86LA143
- Event ID
- 20001213X33100
- Case number
- LAX86LA143
- 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: d5e110407f2ac02fe73b95bf34a6e12345df27747551b067b27d5aafa052ea57; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:03:34.119Z.