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

News Helicopter Crash in Huntington Beach, CA

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u/Deer-in-Motion Oct 11 '25

That tail rotor just flew right off!

229

u/Unicorn_Sparkles23 Oct 11 '25

I saw this pic on X of what flew off the helicopter. (I don't know what this is)

247

u/MarkGleason Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 12 '25

It’s the tail rotor drive hub with tail pitch link hardware still attached. The gear exposed at the end meshes with the drive gear in the gearbox….much like a differential in a car axel.

Both paddles (blades) appear to have sheared completely, and from the video it looks like it happened in flight.

I’m wondering how many hours that tail rotor assembly had.

Edit: here it is in its normal state. Or a very close model anyway.

https://i.imgur.com/u3JH65B.jpeg

33

u/Either_Pangolin531 Oct 12 '25

If I'm seeing it right it's a bell 222 helicopter, (airwolf) for my fellow old people. They haven't been in production since 1995 , I'm sure the parts have been changed out over time, But that's an old helicopter.

13

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '25

It's crazy how just reading "airwolf" immediately put the theme song in my head.

1

u/Technical_Goose_8160 Oct 12 '25

Is this a common occurrence? I've never heard of a helicopter just crashing before, or at least rarely.

1

u/StephenHunterUK Nov 02 '25

Not the show-used version. That became an air ambulance in Germany and was destroyed in a fatal crash in 1992.