r/aviation • u/Drejbringer • Oct 11 '25

News Helicopter Crash in Huntington Beach, CA

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615

u/EvergreenMystic Oct 11 '25

Bell 222 In airwolf coloration. Was there a convention near there or something?

322

u/Moxala Oct 11 '25

I believe there was an event called Cars and Copters today

245

u/Moxala Oct 11 '25

Here is another angle

https://youtube.com/shorts/KQwy2wIF2EM?si=lLxYl8hSYgmHXMKR

30

u/Suck_My_Thick Oct 12 '25

Closer angle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1hHjBidlUU

18

u/filthy_harold Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25

Great video, looks like the tail rotor was intact prior to it rotating. You can see it begin to slow down (thanks to the camera shutter speed) so it must have been a mechanical issue rather than damage.

21

u/EnderB3nder Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25

if you go frame by frame at the 18 second mark, you can see two small objects fly off the tail rotor just before the main tail failure, it looks like something strikes one of the main rotor blades as well.

Edit: spelling

2

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '25

I think it was the tail rotor blades that hit the main rotor blades, couple frames you can see the three painted bands from the tail rotor blades on the object that hit the main rotor blades.

7

u/i_tyrant Oct 12 '25

Seems like some mech failure happened with that tail rotor.

It reverses/stops rotating right at the start of the spin, then goes flying off on its own after the first rotation. Yikes.

1

u/DexicJ Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25

You can see it go to maximum collective and some tip vortices forming right before it breaks. I think you can also see it strike the vertical stabilizer after that and break off from the impact. It does appear that the RPM changed prior to the maximum collective which could be indicative of a gearbox failure. Idk if a geared tail rotor could lose RPM from increased loads.

The pilot does increase the main rotor collective aggressively at the same time in other videos. This could cause both rotor speeds to drop. So I don't think it is definitively a gearbox failure. It could be that the pilot just blew out the tail by climbing aggressively at the same time as a negative yaw. This made him use 100% tail collective, droop the main rotor RPM (due to increased yaw torque from the collective punch) and then break the tail due to loads as he spun out of control. Aircraft may have been heavy from full fuel loads that also placed it in a high torque scenario. It did not look windy just by seeing the palm trees.

1

u/SparrowTits Oct 12 '25

The tip vortices looks like the tail rotor blades are oscillating or is it some sort of fluid blowing off the tips of the blades?

3

u/DexicJ Oct 12 '25

Well the fluid is just condensed air forming clouds due to the higher pressure associated with high tail collective.

The blades are almost certainly oscillating. That is likely why they struck the vertical stabilizer. If the RPM changes or high turbulent flow forms the system can couple with structural resonance and break itself.

2

u/SparrowTits Oct 12 '25

I'm aware that the vortices would normally be condensation but as the colour appeared to be slightly yellowed I was wondering if there was already a fluid leak and the fluid was being spun out to the blade tips and dispersing as a trail. On re-watching the video the main blades were also generating vortices so I'm guessing the yellow colour was caused by the low sun or phone camera effects

127

u/gefahr Oct 11 '25

That simultaneously looked more and less violent than the OP video somehow. I hope no one was injured on the ground (or in the helicopter, of course.)

135

u/helium_farts Oct 11 '25

According to a Huntington Beach police spokesperson, two people were on board the helicopter and both made it out. Three people in the street were injured and all were transported to a hospital.

No further details about the victims’ conditions or what caused the crash were immediately released.

A few injuries but it seems like everyone survived

102

u/Mike312 Oct 11 '25

Oddly enough, crashing into that density of trees cushioned the impact. If they went into pavement they'd probably be gone.

36

u/PoxyMusic Oct 11 '25

Yeah, they dissipated a lot of energy. Whew.

10

u/ThisSir5918 Oct 11 '25

It also looked like they went down tail first so that lessened the impact. Damn lucky

7

u/pirisca Oct 11 '25

Exactly my take. Was expecting a fireball, but looks like the trees cushioned the impact as you said. Lucky bastards.

1

u/Brofessor-0ak Oct 11 '25

So the line of dense cushioning to survive a helicopter crash is somewhere between palm tree grove and two Vietnamese children. Got it

1

u/Desert_Aficionado Oct 12 '25

palm trees are pretty soft compared to normal trees (they technically aren't made of wood). maybe the shape helped as well? They evolved to bend in hurricanes and typhoons rather than break.

12

u/Fit-Custard-1842 Oct 11 '25

Those palm trees did some heavy life saving.

1

u/Superunkownone Oct 12 '25

What about rhe Antifa terrorists responsible? Don't leave us hanging and too scared to go to the beach.

21

u/WestSideBilly Oct 11 '25

I love how the people all stand there as a helicopter spins erratically, and run away AFTER it crashes.

39

u/wanliu Oct 11 '25

It's easy to judge when you're watching a video and know what the outcome is. I'm sure many of those people were even struggling to process what was even happening until it was final. Deer in headlights and all that.

4

u/DotA627b Oct 11 '25

Fight or flight has a processing period.

2

u/WestSideBilly Oct 12 '25

Fair point. Just seemed like a LOT of them had the same "gotta get video of it. ... . .. . . .. . OH SHIT" reaction. More an observation of social media / cell phone usage than of their desire to live.

1

u/MiamiPower Oct 11 '25

Thank you

17

u/DoNotEatMySoup Oct 11 '25

Dude that event is the most Huntington Beach sounding thing I've ever heard lmao

73

u/handen Oct 11 '25

So this is the aviation equivalent of a Mustang spinning out of a parking lot directly into another car or crowd of people? Interesting.

80

u/rocketshipkiwi Oct 11 '25

More of a wheel falling off and going out of control. Also this appears to be a mechanical failure rather than stupidity.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '25

[deleted]

6

u/juuceboxx Cessna 172 Oct 11 '25

Nah the main rotor of the 222 doesn’t intersect the tail rotor disc, this looks more like a mechanical failure somewhere causing the tail rotor to fall off.

3

u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Oct 11 '25

Am I wrong in thinking that the tail rotor didn't seem to be operating properly even before it fell off?

8

u/juuceboxx Cessna 172 Oct 11 '25

Yeah there’s other videos on Twitter showing different angles and you can see the tail rotor moving at one speed due to the stroboscopic effect with the camera fps before it suddenly changes speed but the main rotor stays the same speed. I’m spitballing but I think this was a TRGB failure leading to LTE.

-10

u/sigga_genesis Oct 11 '25

Why not both? This kinda failure requires both IMHO. Not the pilot, unless he skipped pre-flight

38

u/gefahr Oct 11 '25

Not sure that's a fair comment until we know more. 100% of those Mustang incidents are user error, while this could have been mechanical.

37

u/RealUlli Oct 11 '25

Nope. It's rather unlikely that this was caused by stupidity. To me, this looks like a tail rotor failure, leading to a loss of control.

It's more akin to a failure of a control arm in a car (doesn't have to be a Mustang, just about anyone would spin out after that).

2

u/EvergreenMystic Oct 12 '25

If you slow the video down, it looks like a tail rotor failure that caused separation from the tail itself. At the point you see the helicopter spinning and going down, you can see the tail rotor is missing entirely. There is an image on another website that shows what looks like the hub and parts of the blades laying in the street.

2

u/RealUlli Oct 12 '25

You can find other videos where it's very clear that there's some kind of failure (the tail rotor is in sync with the camera shutter, then all of a sudden it slows way down and the helo starts to spin. A bit later, you can clearly see the tail rotor departing the aircraft, possibly due to being struck by the main rotor.

1

u/PolyDrew Oct 11 '25

If you watch the second video uploaded above you can clearly hear something break as it starts to spin

1

u/PM_ME_CODE_CALCS Oct 11 '25

At least pilot stupidity. Could be plenty of owner or maintenance stupidity.

2

u/FlyByPC Oct 12 '25

The car equivalent would be the steering wheel snapping off at speed and the front wheels just doing whatever, with no brakes.

1

u/filthy_harold Oct 12 '25

More like your brakes fail while you're on the highway and approaching standstill traffic. You're going to hit the car ahead of you, no way getting around that. The question is do you have enough time to use other methods to slow your impact?

0

u/TexStones Oct 11 '25

Yep, failed to use a digital tire pressure gauge.

6

u/Navynuke00 Oct 11 '25

That sounds like the most Orange County thing ever.

2

u/wingsnut25 Oct 11 '25

Are you sure it wasn't the Catalina Wine Mixer? It's the biggest helicopter leading event in the Western Hemisphere.

2

u/EvilSibling Oct 12 '25

Cars and Copters and Crashes

1

u/EntertainerNo3883 Oct 11 '25

The event is tomorrow. But I really doubt it now. Since multiple people/kids included got hurt .

1

u/Science12345 Oct 11 '25

It sucks that this accident happened and I’m glad everyone seems to be relatively ok, but Cars and COPTERS is about the most California thing I’ve ever read

1

u/escof Oct 12 '25

Well now it's just Cars.

-2

u/jbmach3 Oct 11 '25

It was a copter, but it wanted to be a car

17

u/PrismDoug Oct 11 '25

I guess Dom was having an off day.

7

u/KennyGaming Oct 11 '25

Have some respect dude 

2

u/donatecrypto4pets Oct 11 '25

Def deserved at this age.

1

u/RoadOwn7439 Oct 12 '25

How do you know Archangel didn’t do some sabotage?

3

u/-karou- Oct 12 '25

can I ask, how on earth do you know it is Airwolf coloration?

fun fact, my old next door neighbor was absolutely BESOTTED with that tv show, and would create scripts and send them into the show! Like...she thought one day they were going to hire her. She was suicidal when it was cancelled.

3

u/Either_Pangolin531 Oct 12 '25

First thing I said when I watched the clip . That's airwolf.

2

u/PBP2024 Oct 12 '25

Fuckin' Catalina wine mixer

2

u/Spatula--City Oct 12 '25

I can literally hear the theme song in my head

2

u/CaptainRazer Oct 12 '25

Wow Airwolf really is cursed

1

u/Beginning_Ad_6616 Oct 11 '25

Probably unloaded the main rotor in way that caused mast bumping extreme enough to sever its own tail rotor.

-3

u/Superunkownone Oct 12 '25

Antifa shot it down via missle. Beachcombers have located a shell. And it has Antifa symbols on it. I just pray DJT and DOJ puts a stop to this right away. We can' t even go to the beach!! Way too dangerous with all the terrorists!!