MIA97TA246 · Hughes 269A
Hughes 269A · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From ANCLOTC ISLAND, FL (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97TA246
- 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 269A
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 269
- 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
- N6786M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From ANCLOTC ISLAND, FL (no airport)To 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 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight had departed from an island after completing a mosquito control inspection. The pilot said he was at a cruise setting of '23 inches [manifold] plus 2800 rpm' and at an altitude of 200 feet above the water, when the engine started 'missing' and 'failed to develop enough power to maintain flight.' The engine sputtered and regained full power. The pilot was setting up for an autorotation with a forward airspeed of 50 knots. The pilot further said he had 'split the needles,' and had set the engine rpm at 2,000. When he decelerated the helicopter at 50 feet above the water, the engine came back on line. The pilot then 'joined' the needles and established an attitude to continue flight when the landing skid contacted the water. A test run was performed on the engine. Due to damage to the magneto's and the ignition harness, these components had to be repaired prior to running the engine. The test run of the engine revealed no discrepancies at all power sittings.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97TA246
- Event ID
- 20001208X08906
- Case number
- MIA97TA246
- 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: aa164ffdd7c6a41e08f47aecf2bdfb3b3e407177fb33ff47cfb2ce63a915c0da; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:37:11.164Z.