Los Angeles Airways Flight 417
Sikorsky S-61L · Mechanical failure
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Disneyland Heliport
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 21 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Sikorsky S-61L
- Aircraft type
- Sikorsky S-61
- 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
- N300Y
- Operator
- Los Angeles Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)To Disneyland Heliport
- 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Main rotor failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Fatigue fracture
- Personnel › Inadequate maintenance and inspection
- Rotorcraft › Other
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Los Angeles Airways Flight 417 was a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter that crashed on August 14, 1968 in the city of Compton, California. All eighteen passengers and three crew members were killed. The aircraft was destroyed by impact and fire. According to the National Transportation Safety Board the probable cause of the accident was fatigue failure. The accident happened when the arbitrarily yellow designated blade, one of five main rotor blades, separated from the spindle that attached the blade to the rotor head. Following failure, the helicopter was uncontrollable and it fell to the ground. The fatigue crack originated in an area of substandard hardness and inadequate shot peening. This was the second crash of a Los Angeles Airways helicopter operating between Los Angeles International Airport and the Anaheim Disneyland Heliport in the year 1968 (see Los Angeles Airways Flight 841).
Investigation and cause
Findings
In the course of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) they made the following findings:
The aircraft gross weight and center of gravity were within limits.
The crewmembers were qualified for the flight.
The yellow main rotor blade separated in flight rendering the aircraft uncontrollable.
Blade separation was due to fatigue failure of the spindle.
The fatigue crack was a high-cycle, low-stress type which propagated over a long period of time.
The crack initiated because of a combination of the following factors:
Metal hardness below specifications associated with a banded microstructure.
Improper shot peening of the base metal surface.
Possible detrimental effect of residual tensile stress from the plating.
Pitting that may have been present in the base metal surface.
It is believed that the crack was present at the last Magnaglo inspection of the part, and it is not known why it was not detected.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Los Angeles Airways Flight 417” (revision 1368906050, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
FATIGUE ORIGIN IN AREA OF SUBSTANDARD HARDNESS AND INADEQUATE SHOT PEENING ON M/R BLADE SPINDLE.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Los Angeles Airways Flight 417
- Revision
- 1368906050 · 2026-08-11 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q6681949
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19680814P023248
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Los Angeles Airways Flight 417" (page 14598833, revision 1368906050); merged with NTSB case NTSB19680814P023248 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19680814P023248: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19680814P023248
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19680814P023248: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19680814P023248: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19680814P023248: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19680814P023248: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Los Angeles Airways Flight 417" and NTSB case NTSB19680814P023248, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.