BFO94LA155 · Hughes 369D
Hughes 369D · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From 6W7 · Gettysburg, PA to 2G7 · NEW CASTLE MUNI, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94LA155
- 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
- 0 · 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Hughes 369D
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 369
- 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
- N5027P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6W7 · Gettysburg, PATo 2G7 · NEW CASTLE MUNI, PA
- 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
- Part 91: General Aviation
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Fuel system, vent › Disabled
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Butler, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was overflying wooded terrain at 1000 feet msl when the engine lost power. He autorotated to a hilly field and during the landing the rotor blade severed the tailboom. According to the pilot, the fuel low warning light did not activate before the power loss occurred. The examination of the helicopter revealed the fuel tanks were empty and the fuel emergency vent valve had malfunctioned. As a result, the fuel cell decavitated and collasped, holding the fuel quantity probe in a position to indicate a one-quarter tank amount of fuel.
Probable cause
The malfunction of the emergency fuel vent and the exhaustion of the fuel supply which resulted in the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94LA155
- Event ID
- 20001206X01978
- Case number
- BFO94LA155
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: df0e95f62471de69038fe5f504fb841dd7d3580dfa20eababcb2d436e7871c4c; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:44:57.928Z.