FTW96FA060 · McDonnell Douglas 369E
McDonnell Douglas 369E · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96FA060
- 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
- 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
McDonnell Douglas 369E
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 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
- N16089
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Part 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover out of ground effect
- 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 object
- 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
- Utility pole; Wire, transmission
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was hovering at 55 feet agl, parallel to a power line cable, facing east-southeast. The wind was from 200 to 210 degees at 5 to 10 knots. The rotation plane of the tail rotor blades was about 38 inches from the nearest wire. A crew member, held by a safety harness, was working from the left side of the helicopter intalling an overhead ground wire in roller blocks. The crew member's work platform was about 4 inches from the overhead ground wire when, as the pilot described, 'the cyclic suddenly moved to the left and maybe slightly forward. (The helicoper) immediately started moving to the left and into the pole and line.' The pilot further stated that he was 'trying to stop the cyclic' and move it to the right; however, 'cyclic movement to the right had a restriction,' and the 'helicopter struck the pole and/or the shield wire, pivoted to the left and up, over the shield wire,' and 'began to spin.' It impacted the ground, fire erupted, and the helicopter came to rest inverted. The pilot escaped the fire, but the crew member sustained fatal injuries. Investigation revealed the helicopter's center-of-gravity was left-lateral (-2.67 inches), the limit was -3.00 inches, and about 25% of right cyclic travel was available to the pilot. A gouge mark was found on the side of the power pole matching the helicopters work flatform. No preexisting cracks or discontinuities were found in unburned flight controls, although most of the controls were consumed by fire.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain clearance from the power line and utility pole. The gusty/crosswind (weather) condition was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96FA060
- Event ID
- 20001207X04992
- Case number
- FTW96FA060
- 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: d2cac39f14820ff90b4faf317154bb58fc920c483c157394686f8ca7d23b1e1f; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:30:25.317Z.