LAX07LA002 · McDonnell Douglas 369E
McDonnell Douglas 369E · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Hilo International Airport (ITO) to Hilo International Airport (ITO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA002
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
McDonnell Douglas 369E
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 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
- N142MK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hilo International Airport (ITO), Hilo, HITo Hilo International Airport (ITO)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › Control friction, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The lateral cyclic friction was on prior to departure, and the helicopter landed hard shortly after takeoff. After the pilot's first flight, the helicopter underwent a hot refueling and the passengers were loaded onboard for the pilot's second flight. The pilot performed her pretakeoff checklist items, which included releasing the control frictions and performing a freedom of control check. The pilot then demonstrated to the front seat passengers where to position their feet by bringing her right foot aft. She then obtained tower clearance and began the takeoff. During the takeoff, the cyclic was locked and she could not move it. She attempted to control the helicopter using trim but shortly thereafter, the helicopter impacted the ground. Upon impact, the pilot reached down and released the lateral cyclic friction. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector examined the lateral cyclic friction system installation and operation and noted no mechanical anomalies. The FAA inspector did note that if he brought one foot farther aft than is done in normal operation, an inadvertent application of the lateral cyclic friction might result.
Probable cause
Inadvertent application of the lateral cyclic friction, which resulted in a loss of control and subsequent hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA002
- Event ID
- 20061006X01475
- Case number
- LAX07LA002
- 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, coordinates. 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: df9673ab492aef0f1503f01f3c1d3abfd0288164dd6ed2e59961db77e168fae5; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:50:07.096Z.