SEA94GA203 · Hughes OH-6A
Hughes OH-6A · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94GA203
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Government
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Hughes OH-6A
- Aircraft type
- Hughes OH-6
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N12UT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Public Aircraft
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · descent
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE RETURNING TO SALT LAKE CITY FROM THE SOUTHEAST, THE PILOT REPORTED SEEING THUNDERSTORMS IN THE AREA. AT ABOUT 1843 MDT, THE HELICOPTER CHANGED COURSE AND PROCEEDED OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WITH A MODE C ALTITUDE READOUT OF 9600 TO 9800 FEET MSL. THE TERRAIN ELEVATION ALONG THE FLIGHT PATH CHANGED FROM 7700 TO ABOUT 10,000 FEET. SHORTLY AFTER PASSING OVER TERRAIN NEAR 10,000 FEET, THE PILOT RADIOED A MAYDAY AND DECLARED THAT THE ENGINE WAS LOSING POWER. THE HELICOPTER BEGAN A DESCENT, ROUGHLY FOLLOWING A CANYON DRAINAGE AREA. SUBSEQUENTLY, IT CRASHED AT AN ELEVATION OF APPROXIMATELY 8850 FEET AFTER IMPACTING TREES. THE LONGITUDINAL WRECKAGE DISTRIBUTION WAS MINIMAL, INDICATING SLOW FORWARD VELOCITY AT TREE IMPACT. AN EXAM OF THE ENGINE REVEALED EVIDENCE OF POWER PRODUCTION DURING IMPACT; NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT 12,000 FEET, AND THE HELICOPTER'S GROSS WEIGHT AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WAS ESTIMATED TO BE 1977 POUNDS. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SHOWED THAT WITH THESE CONDITIONS, THE HELICOPTER WOULD HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO MAINTAIN A HOVER OUT OF GROUND EFFECT. THE ROTOR BLADES SHOWED ROTATIONAL ENERGY IMPACT SIGNATURES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION AND FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE/CLEARANCE FROM THE SURROUNDING TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THUNDERSTORMS IN THE AREA (REQUIRING THE PILOT TO DEVIATE FROM THE DESIRED COURSE), HIGH MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, AND HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE,
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94GA203
- Event ID
- 20001206X01866
- Case number
- SEA94GA203
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-07-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1111ad54b4b60d46c50efa1d872dfa389d42d60998752fbe2b69a48317a0fc8d; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:37:31.478Z.