LAX08IA241 · MD Helicopters Inc MD 902
California Shock Trauma Air Rescue MD Helicopters Inc MD 902 · Incident: flight control system malfunction/failure during landing
From RMC · San Jose, CA to Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08IA241
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 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
MD Helicopters Inc MD 902
- Aircraft type
- MD Helicopters MD-902
- 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
- N902CS
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From RMC · San Jose, CATo Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS), Salinas, 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 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
- Landing
- Defining eventThe 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the approach to land, the pilot reported that he brought the helicopter to an 8- to 10-foot hover when the nose broke to the right and the helicopter started an uncommanded right spin. The pilot's attempt to correct with full left pedal failed to stop the spin. The pilot then initiated a hovering autorotation, which resulted in a hard landing and minor damage to the landing skids. The postaccident airframe inspection revealed that the threaded portion of the rear of the forward directional control cable of the no tail rotor (NOTAR) had separated. The forward directional control cable and the rotating cone control rod of the NOTAR, as well as associated hardware, were sent to an NTSB specialist for a detailed examination. The examination of the cable and associated hardware revealed that the cable had failed in fatigue due to the misplacement of the lock washer that was located between the cable's telescopic part and the rotating cone control rod.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain directional control due to the fatigue failure of the threaded portion of the forward directional control cable as a result of the improper installation a lock washer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08IA241
- Event ID
- 20080813X01237
- Case number
- LAX08IA241
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 55050afa35d0f713fe15b41b9a5589b476d8f0ce59331f23ee47fb8b6f228e50; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:03:19.041Z.