LOS ANGELES _ The flight lasted all of a minute.
The four-seat helicopter had barely lifted off from John Wayne Airport when it nosed down, clipped two houses and slammed into a third, killing the pilot and two of his three passengers.
"It was like a train hitting a wall," said Paddi Faubion, who saw the Jan. 30 crash from her balcony in a gated Newport Beach, Calif., neighborhood.
The cause has yet to be determined, but the type of helicopter is well known to accident investigators: the Robinson R44. It is the world's best-selling civilian helicopter, a top choice among flight schools, sightseeing companies, police departments and recreational pilots.
It also is exceptionally deadly.
Robinson R44s were involved in 42 fatal crashes in the U.S. from 2006 to 2016, more than any other civilian helicopter, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of National Transportation Safety Board accident reports.
That translates to 1.6 deadly accidents per 100,000 hours flown _ a rate nearly 50 percent higher than any other of the dozen most common civilian models whose flight hours are tracked by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Family-owned Robinson Helicopter Co. disputed The Times' analysis, contending that the FAA undercounts the flight hours for the R44, leading to an inflated accident rate. The company vigorously defended its record, maintaining that its aircraft are safe and reliable when flown within their operating limits.
Still, safety issues have dogged the Torrance manufacturer over its 45-year history, The Times found, and both the company and the FAA have been slow to address design features and operating characteristics that have caused or contributed to accidents.
Scores of R44 pilots and passengers have been killed in preventable post-crash fires, or in helicopters that dropped from the sky when they suddenly lost lift. Others have died when main rotor blades peeled apart in flight or sliced through tail booms or cockpits.
Some pilots or their surviving family members said they were stunned to learn _ after accidents _ of the R44's safety issues, and they questioned why regulators had not taken stronger action.
Gail Bechler, whose husband, Jim, died in a fiery 2012 accident that investigators concluded was his fault, said she was shocked to find out that his R44's fuel tanks had "split like a Coke can" in a relatively low-impact crash _ and that there had been many others like it.
"I thought, wait a minute, they can continue to make this same part even after they knew? I just remember thinking, 'Who is going to die next?'" she said. "Those helicopters should have all been grounded and there should have been a giant red flag and a recall."
More than 600 people have died in Robinson crashes around the world since 1982. At least 65 wrongful death and product liability lawsuits have been filed across the U.S. since then, accusing Robinson of concealing or willfully ignoring safety issues and dodging accountability _ allegations the company denies. Many of the lawsuits were resolved with confidential settlements.
The company president, Kurt Robinson, contested his helicopter's place atop The Times' accident-rate ranking. He said the FAA flight-hour totals used to calculate the accident rate are a "guesstimate."
The FAA rejected that claim. The agency's estimates, published each year by a group of professional statisticians and currently available through 2016, are based on a survey sent to operators in the field. Federal aviation officials routinely use the data to calculate accident rates.
Even using the company's estimated flight hours _ nearly 40 percent more than the FAA's _ the R44 still had the highest rate, at 1.17 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.
Robinson noted that U.S. fatal R44 crashes declined to two in 2017, which he said reflected the company's efforts to reduce the accident rate. He also argued that the vast majority of Robinson accidents are the fault of pilots _ not the machine _ and that many are students or hobbyists with little time at the controls.
"When people say that ours have more accidents than the others, well, ours are not being flown by professional people," Robinson said. "Ours are being flown much, much more at the entry point of the market."
