LAX86MA268 · Aerospatiale AS-355F-1
Aerospatiale AS-355F-1 · Accident on approach
From HIGH ISLAND 571, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86MA268
- 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-355F-1
- 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
- N5796T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HIGH ISLAND 571, TXTo 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THAT WHILE APCHG AN OIL DRILLING PLATFORM FOR A LNDG, HE OBSERVED THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES GO OUT OF TRACK ABOUT 8 TO 10 INCHES. HE ALSO RPRTD THE HELICOPTER DEVELOPED A 1:1 VERTICAL VIBRATION. DRG THE LNDG, THE HELICOPTER ENTERED INTO GROUND RESONANCE & THE PLT IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN BOTH ENGINES. AN EXAM OF THE HELICOPTER REVEALED THE LEFT FORWARD TRANSMISSION SUPPORT BAR (TSB) WAS BUCKLED & CRACKED AT MIDSPAN. A METALLURGICAL EXAM OF THE FRACTURE AREA ON THE TSB REVEALED EXTENSIVE, LOW CYCLE, HIGH AMPLITUDE, FATIGUE CRACKING. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THE PROPAGATION TIME OFTHE FATIGUE OCCURRED OVR ABOUT 5 HRS OF OPN. THE INV DID NOT REVEAL WHEN THE ORIGINAL BUCKLING OF THE TSB OCCURRED. NO HISTORY OF A PREV HARD LNDG OR GND REASONANCE WAS FND. ALSO, THE RED ARM OF THE STARFLEX HAD FAILED; AN EXAM INDCD IT HAD RUPTURED EITHER UNDER STATIC LOADS, OR VERY RAPIDLY UNDER HI DYNAMIC LOADS. WHEN TESTED, EXTN & RETRACTION TIMES OF LNDG GEAR DAMPERS WERE 8.34 TO 10.38 SEC; AFTER ACDNT, TIME LMTS ESTABLISHED AT 6 TO 13 SEC, PREVIOUSLY 11.1 TO 13.1 SEC
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86MA268
- Event ID
- 20001213X33935
- Case number
- LAX86MA268
- 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: 17c09cbc95d420065705b1c49b15580f61cd93cdd7d1cae2a2419144f19641b7; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:31:30.455Z.