LAX84AA054 · Westland Helicopters 30-100
Westland Helicopters 30-100 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84AA054
- 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
Westland Helicopters 30-100
- Aircraft type
- Westland 30
- 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
- N5830T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), ORANGE COUNTY, 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 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
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Rotorcraft flight control system, tail rotor servo › Fatigue
- Rotorcraft flight control, t/r bellcrank/quadrant › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT 4,000 FT MSL DIRECTIONAL CONTROL WAS LOST. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE HELICOPTER DESCENDING THROUGH THE LOCALIZED CLOUD LAYER IN A LEFT HIGH-ROTATION TURN, WITH THE PITCH ATTITUDE VARYING & ITS RATE OF DESCENT 'VERY FAST.' THE HELICOPTER THEN COLLIDED WITH HIGH TENSION WIRES. THE T/R SERVO WAS FOUND ATTACHED TO THE VERT STABILIZER MOUNT WITH THE UPPER PORTION OF THE N-DEG-2 LEVER ATTACHED TO IT. THE PITCH CHANGE LEVER FROM THE SERVO TO THE 90-DEG GEARBOX HAD FRACTURED DO TO HIGH CYCLE FATIGUE. THE T/R BLADES CONTAINED COUNTERWEIGHTS WHICH ARE DESIGNED, TOGETHER WITH AERODYNAMIC AIRLOADS, TO ASSIST IN RETURNING THE BLADES TO A NEAR 'NEUTRAL' PITCH IN THE EVENT OF A T/R DRIVE AND/OR PITCH CONTROL LEVER FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84AA054
- Event ID
- 20001214X45087
- Case number
- LAX84AA054
- 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 1983-11-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4b912d404f6703325110996d3b0f9413b89d26538aaef8e5e00d32dc3fac7c33; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:52:27.367Z.