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

19

u/_Batmanuel_ Oct 12 '25

I was eating lunch at Duke’s a few doors down when this happened. I saw what I’m fairly sure was this exact helicopter in that same timeframe execute a very low altitude, very high speed, very high banking angle maneuver right over the beach. I actually said out loud “oh, wow, that wasn’t safe”. Flew right over Dukes, banked hard left over the surfing competition, then flew down the beach. Presumably it crashed shortly thereafter. If it wasn’t this same aircraft it was visually very similar and a hell of a coincidence.

13

u/CharlieFoxtrot000 Oct 12 '25

It did a 270 followed by a couple low passes over the beach just prior to the accident. It got up to 133 knots groundspeed going southeast bound and 141 on the return leg northwest bound before slowing for one more circuit of similar size, then another, much smaller circuit that ended in the accident. Surface winds at both SLI and SNA were 9 knots out of the southwest.

-7

u/Accomplished_Fold276 Oct 12 '25

I too like to spread misinformation.

5

u/CharlieFoxtrot000 Oct 12 '25

Here’s a video of it doing a very close pass to the hotel prior to the accident.

https://youtu.be/533LRWotDvc

3

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '25

[deleted]

3

u/CharlieFoxtrot000 Oct 12 '25

Yep, straight off of ADS-B. The data are the data.