WPR17LA167 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Orbic Air Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA167
- 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
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- 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
- N7535G
- Operator
- Orbic Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CATo Hollywood Burbank/Bob Hope Airport (BUR), Burbank, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that during takeoff, the helicopter rolled to the right, and he was unable to arrest the roll with cyclic input. The right skid and main rotor blades struck the ground, and the helicopter spun 360° before it came to rest upright with the tail rotor assembly severed from the tailboom. Postaccident examination of the flight control system revealed flight control continuity with no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. In addition, the pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter at the time of the accident. Thus, it is likely that the pilot failed to maintain helicopter control while maneuvering during takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain helicopter control while maneuvering during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA167
- Event ID
- 20170726X33801
- Case number
- WPR17LA167
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2017-07-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 35a5d6c262faa37f49dcaa9531f21ef31011d7e6de5eca7087468a5e70f6a124; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:36:50.984Z.