MIA95LA078 · Hughes 500C
Hughes 500C · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF) to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95LA078
- 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 500C
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 500
- 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
- N7172Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), OPA LOCKA, FLTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), FL
- 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
- Total 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 starvation
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Collective, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he was in cruise flight at 500 feet agl when he experienced a total loss of engine power. He entered autorotation towards a highway. At 100 feet he initiated a deceleration and applied initial collective pitch at about 20 feet. Collective cushioning pitch was not applied. The helicopter collided with the ground ventral fin first, rocked forward, and slid about 150 feet. Examination of the helicopter revealed the B-nut on the after filter coupling of the fuel pressure differential switch was loose. The coupling B-nut was tightened. The engine was run in an engine test cell and developed adequate power. When the coupling B-nut was loosened the engine shut down.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of altitude and failure to apply collective cushioning pitch during an autorotation resulting in a hard landing. Contributing to the accident was a total loss of engine power due to a loose coupling B-nut on the pneumatic fuel control system, and improper maintenance inspection of helicopter by unknown maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95LA078
- Event ID
- 20001207X03019
- Case number
- MIA95LA078
- 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: 42f13ff06d8fb804cb8c363baecaaf56c683f3a4304ec74a674e7c88ae6f5719; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:14:05.706Z.