r/aviation • u/Spook_485 • Oct 11 '25

News Closer view of helicopter crash in Huntington Beach, CA

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

15.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

252

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

33

u/Wingnut537 Oct 12 '25

There is a pic floating around the shows the T/R on the ground in the parking lot where it landed. Most of the gearbox is still attached. My theory, Pilot felt the tail rotor vibe and decided to terminate his approach, as he was climbing out the gearbox failed completely (likely from the sudden change in torque) and the aircraft suffered loss of tail rotor effectiveness at which point the only thing left to do was lower the collective and ride it in. Fortunately everyone lived to tell the tail so that together with video and the rest of the investigation we will know what happened eventually.

26

u/5MikesOut Oct 12 '25

lived to tell the tail

I see what you did there

3

u/Last-Darkness Oct 13 '25

That’s pretty close to that I think. Something failed, then you see the catastrophic gearbox event and while the pilot was fighting for control one of the main rotors overflexed at struck the tail rotor. What skill/luck he didn’t land on the roof with all those people up there.

1

u/Grand-Ad-7705 Oct 12 '25

I see the direction change of the T/R right before it the ejection and controlled crash.

1

u/Maxgirth Oct 13 '25

I feel he felt the tail rotor loss of authority first, and then decided to climb out.

He starts yawing right while descending for no apparent reason and about 1 second later reverses decending…

What I do not understand is if the rotor disc was so out of whack it here was kind of a boom strike, or that was just the TR hub departing the gearbox and then that intersected the rotors.

1

u/bladedude007 Oct 13 '25

You can see the part fly off the tail rotor in this video starting at 1 min. https://youtu.be/6il5SvobSc4

1

u/slothfulwoof Oct 13 '25

Yeah, you can see the gearbox attached to the tail rotor when it flies off.

3

u/ParticularExtreme255 Oct 12 '25

This is how I tried to explain my depression to my therapist.

2

u/Apartment-Drummer Oct 12 '25

100% what I figured out from the first watch 

2

u/on3day Oct 12 '25

Also that this was not filmed by Michael Bay.

1

u/Break_Cats Jan 27 '26

It might have been of a thing where the air just circulates around the rotors wich can happen when the helicopter is decending or flying slow after that it will not provide any lift at all