Los Angeles Airways Flight 841 was a
Sikorsky S-61
The Sikorsky S-61L and S-61N are civil variants of the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King, SH-3 Sea King military helicopter. It was developed and produced by the American helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft.
The commercial version of the Sea King w ...
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
that crashed at 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday May 22nd 1968 in the city of
Paramount, California
Paramount is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. According to the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 54,098, down from 55,266 at the 2000 census. Paramount is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area and is borde ...
. All twenty passengers and three crew members were killed. The aircraft was destroyed by impact and fire. The
probable cause
In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition or f ...
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.
The cause of the mechanical failure is undetermined.
At the time, it was the
worst helicopter-related accident in U.S. aviation history,
["21 Aboard Killed as Copter Falls in Compton Park" William Tully; Dave Larsen ''Los Angeles Times''; Aug 15, 1968 pg. 1] not to be surpassed until the
1986 Grand Canyon mid-air collision
The Grand Canyon mid-air collision occurred when Grand Canyon Airlines Flight 6, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, collided with a Bell 206 helicopter, Helitech Flight 2, over Grand Canyon National Park on June 18, 1986. All 25 passengers a ...
which killed 25.
Los Angeles Airways
Los Angeles Airways (LAA) was a helicopter airline founded in October 1947 and based in Westchester, Los Angeles, Westchester, California, which offered service to area airports throughout Southern California.
History
Los Angeles Airways comme ...
(LAA) Flight 841 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from
Disneyland Heliport in
Anaheim
Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
to
Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...
. 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 helicopter, serial number 61060, had accumulated 12,096 total flying hours prior to the accident.
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.
Among those killed was a group of nine vacationers from Ohio; a
Hunt-Wesson Foods executive; the mayor of
Red Bluff, California
Red Bluff is a city in and the county seat of Tehama County, California, United States. The population was 14,710 at the 2020 census, up from 14,076 at the 2010 census.
It is located north of Sacramento, south of Redding, and it is bisect ...
; and a
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
professor.
See also
*
List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
This list of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft includes notable events that have a corresponding Wikipedia article. Entries in this list involve passenger or cargo aircraft that are operating commercially and meet this list ...
*
Los Angeles Airways Flight 417
Los Angeles Airways Flight 417 was a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter that crashed on August 14, 1968 in the city of Compton, California. All eighteen passengers and three crew members were killed. The aircraft was destroyed by impact and fire. Accord ...
References
External links
NTSB report on Flight 841Readers recall 50 years of DisneylandAviation Safety report
{{coord missing, Los Angeles County, California
Aviation accidents and incidents in California
1968 in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Airways accidents and incidents
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by mechanical failure
Disasters in Los Angeles
Paramount, California
Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1968
May 1968 events in the United States
Accidents and incidents involving the Sikorsky S-61