Los Angeles Airways Flight 841
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| Summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | May 22, 1968 |
| Type | Mechanical Failure |
| Site | Paramount, California |
| Passengers | 20 |
| Crew | 3 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Fatalities | 23 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Sikorsky 61L |
| Operator | Los Angeles Airways |
| Tail number | N303Y |
Los Angeles Airways Flight 841 crashed at 5:50 p.m. on May 22, 1968 in the city of Paramount, California. All twenty passengers and three crewmembers were fatally injured. The aircraft was destroyed by impact and fire. The probable cause of the accident was a mechanical failure in the blade rotor system, which then allowed one blade to strike the side of the fuselage. The other four blades were then thrown out of balance and all five rotor blades broke and then the rear fuselage and tail separated from the rest of the airframe.[1] The cause of the mechanical failure is undermined.[2]
Los Angeles Airways, (LAA), Flight 841, was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Disneyland Heliport in Anaheim, California to Los Angeles International Airport. The flight was westbound at 2,000 feet over Paramount, California when air traffic controllers received a distress message from pilots: "L.A., we’re crashing, help us." The helicopter crashed onto a dairy farm and burst into flames. N303Y, a Sikorsky S-61L, serial number 61060, helicopter had accumulated 12,096 total flying hours prior to the accident.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Wreckage
Much of the debris was contained in the dairy farm where the helicopter crashed. The tail rotor was discovered one block east of the crash site in a used truck yard. A mechanical failure in the helicopter’s main rotor hub caused one of the rotor blades to detach and it sliced into the fuselage. [3][1]
[edit] Notable Passengers
Among those killed was a group of nine vacationers from Ohio; a Hunt-Wesson Foods executive; and the mayor of Red Bluff, California; and a University of California, Berkeley professor.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Gero (1993). Aviation Disasters. Sparkford, Somerset, England: Patrick Stephens Limited. ISBN 1-85260-379-8..
- ^ a b "NTSB Identification: DCA68A0006", National Traffic Safety Board. Retrieved on 2008-06-06.
- ^ a b 1960s Notable California Aviation Disasters.
[edit] External Links
- NTSB report on Flight 841
- Los Angeles Airways Helicopter at Disneyland
- Readers recall 50 years of Disneyland
- Aviation Safety report
