WPR14LA173 · McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 600N
McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 600N · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Adelanto Airport (52CL) to Ramona Airport (RNM)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA173
- 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
McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 600N
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 600
- 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
- N606BP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Adelanto Airport (52CL), Adelanto, CATo Ramona Airport (RNM), Ramona, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 1998)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was for the airline transport pilot (ATP) to evaluate and check out the commercial pilot in the helicopter. The commercial pilot reported that he was acting as pilot-in-command and at the controls. A witness reported that, as the helicopter lifted off, it initially tilted left. He added that he saw the commercial pilot increase pitch on the collective and that the helicopter then yawed right 90 degrees and tilted nose down. It left the ramp to the north of the property and then the whole fuselage continued banking left almost 90 degrees and spun nose right. The helicopter spun about three revolutions until it sounded like the engine power was reduced to flight idle. Once the power was reduced, the helicopter's nose dropped, and the main rotor blade contacted a fence pole, which caused it to suddenly stop and the helicopter to land hard, during which the right skid collapsed.
The witness reported that he had flown the helicopter for 25 minutes before the accident and completed one takeoff and one landing. He stated that all of the controls responded as commanded during his flight. No evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were found during the examination of the recovered airframe and engine.
It is likely that the commercial pilot made improper control inputs and subsequently lost helicopter control immediately after liftoff. It could not be determined whether the ATP made corrective actions in an attempt to regain control because he was seriously injured and unable to make a statement.
Probable cause
The commercial pilot’s improper control inputs, which resulted in a loss of helicopter control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA173
- Event ID
- 20140427X71558
- Case number
- WPR14LA173
- 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: c02b8da45c3a8d13e92b9172f941e028c9146d065b8d5ebb02d04d881559e9c6; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:32:34.682Z.