Helicopter Into Palm Trees, Huntington Beach, 5 injured (3 on ground), 10/11/2025

[Racerx]

Seen on reddit. Starts spinning and tail rotor gets flung.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/3-hospitalized-after-helicopter-crash-in-huntington-beach/

 

[Doc Holliday]

Looks like LTE.

 

[Racerx]

Looks like LTE.

Would that cause the rotor to depart altogether?

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/pVut0yJH0G

 

[Peter Anderson]

Looks to me like he got caught in his own vortex ring, tried to power out of it with not enough tail rotor authority, overstressed the tail in the spin, broke it off, then did some free trimming on the palms. Glad everyone survived it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Bell206]

Would that cause the rotor to depart altogether?

Not usually. It could be a tailrotor failure of some sort given the videos out there minus the TR. And if so, I think he did a decent job of getting on the ground for what it is worth.

 

[Velocity173]

 

[AV8R_87]

You can see the tail rotor fall off, and before that the decay in rpm is visible.
I think this was a tail rotor gearbox failure, not LTE.
View attachment m2-res_480p.mp4

 

[Doc Holliday]

I slowed the vid down and you can see the TR depart in about 1 to 1 and half rotations.

 

[AV8R_87]

Also, this was found near the wreckage:

 

[Racerx]

Also, this was found near the wreckage:
View attachment 146074

If you look close, after the rotor departs. You can see some smoke or fluid coming from that area as it starts spinning

 

[FlightmechH3]

It appears that the TRGB decided to quit for the day.

 

[Racerx]

It appears that the TRGB decided to quit for the day.

Pretty sure it retired.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

Of course it's on video:

Don't care for the headline on this one:

Southern California helicopter crash leaves 5 hurt

Five people were taken to the hospital after a helicopter crashed in Huntington Beach on Saturday.

www.khou.com

 

[nauga]

Two threads on the same accident have been merged, keeping the more descriptive title of the later thread.

Nauga,
modded

 

[Velocity173]

Different view.

 

[Velocity173]

Just before the accident. Seems that every year there it’s a competition in how close they can fly by the building (hotel?) across the street.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

Also, this was found near the wreckage:
View attachment 146074

Tail rotor gearbox failure, mebbe.

 

[Velocity173]

 

[TCABM]

Was this at the Catalina Wine Mixer?

 

[Bell206]

Was this at the Catalina Wine Mixer?

Cars N Copters event.

 

[TCABM]

Cars N Copters event.

Is that the second biggest helicopter leasing event in the western hemisphere?

 

[AV8R_87]

Screenshot of the potentially failed tail rotor pitch change link, for people that don't want to click on videos:

 

[ktup-flyer]

 

[AV8R_87]

NIce find! I thought it was a case of the pitch link retaining bolt failing, but it looks like the actual pitch change horn failed around the first retaining bolt.

 

[Bell206]

There are also pictures that indicate the TR pitch horn was broken prior to the landing approach and during the previous flybys at the hotel.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

There are also pictures that indicate the TR pitch horn was broken prior to the landing approach and during the previous flybys at the hotel.

Preflight? Who needs a preflight?

 

[Bell206]

Preflight? Who needs a preflight?

Interesting. What makes you think there was no preflight? One of the prevailing theories is since only the output side of the tail rotor gearbox departed that maybe there was an issue with the TR output shaft assy or TR spider that caused the pitch horn to fail in flight prior to arriving at the area.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

Interesting. What makes you think there was no preflight? One of the prevailing theories is since only the output side of the tail rotor gearbox departed that maybe there was an issue with the TR output shaft assy or TR spider that caused the pitch horn to fail in flight prior to arriving at the area.

The post to which I replied, the one that indicated that the pitch horn was perished on a previous flight.

 

[AV8R_87]

I think the fly-by was on the same flight.
Most likely things went wrong when more pedal was needed for landing.
The asymmetric thrust probably tore things apart.

 

[Bell206]

The post to which I replied, the one that indicated that the pitch horn was perished on a previous flight.

The previous flybys were all part of the same flight and happened just prior to the landing approach? Sorry for the confusion.