LAX85LA117 · Hughes 369E
Hughes 369E · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From an unrecorded airport to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX85LA117
- 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
Hughes 369E
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 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
- N121JP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HI
- 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
- 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
- Object › Bird(s)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN FLT OVER WATER AT ABOUT 400 FT AGL & 1/2 MI FROM SHORE, THE PLT SAW A LARGE FLOCK OF WHITE BIRDS. HE REPORTED THAT HE FLARED TO A STOP, BUT WAS UNABLE TO AVOID THE BIRDS. AFTER THE HELICOPTER STRUCK BIRD(S), AN EXTREME VIBRATION DEVELOPED. THE PLT ELECTED TO 'GET DOWN TO THE WATER.' THE HELICOPTER TOUCHED DOWN ON THE WATER, ROLLED OVER & SANK, BUT THE PLT EGRESSED & SWAM TO SHORE WITHOUT INJURY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX85LA117
- Event ID
- 20001214X35558
- Case number
- LAX85LA117
- 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: 55b41389052ff1b9179409624467778a6093aa8afdaa42adf1f338a6bd9b20e0; retrieved 2026-09-23T18:39:28.818Z.