WPR11LA190 · Bell 47G
Bell 47G · Accident: dynamic rollover during takeoff
From Zamperini Field (TOA) to Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA190
- 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
- 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
Bell 47G
- Aircraft type
- Bell 47
- 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
- N9FK
- Operator
- Rodriguez Danny
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CATo Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR), Hawthorne, 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter pilot reported that he applied power and pitch for takeoff and lifted up about 2 to 3 feet while starting a pedal turn to the right. He said that the helicopter then abruptly started to turn hard to the right and that he then had no control over the helicopter, so he immediately lowered the collective to stop the rotation. When the helicopter touched down, it immediately rolled onto its right side, shattering the cabin bubble and the main rotor blades. An airport operations employee heard the noise and responded to assist the pilot. He said that the pilot told him that he was in a hover just above the ground and that he “was cleared for takeoff and it just went over.” No gusts were reported on the day of the accident. The pilot did not report any known preimpact mechanical discrepancies with the helicopter. It is likely that the pilot simultaneously performed a right-pedal turn while transitioning to forward flight at too low an altitude.
Probable cause
The pilot did not maintain adequate altitude during takeoff, which resulted in ground contact and a dynamic rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA190
- Event ID
- 20110407X64458
- Case number
- WPR11LA190
- 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: f8abe204a6fe62f59d331b18d953c98d34bd019c7183abb95f96606714abed26; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:01:25.472Z.