SEA98LA128 · Hughes 369D
Hughes 369D · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From WA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA128
- 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
- 1
- 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
- N5063G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From WATo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- External load cable/hook › Separation
- Ground personnel › External load equipment, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Two ground crewman were preparing cedar shake blocks for movement by the helicopter, and were utilizing a three-quarter inch diameter, yellow plastic line provided by the contractor. Each end of this flexible line was attached to itself by means of a woven 'splice' to create a loop at its end. The polypropylene line was then centered around the load with one spliced loop eye end threaded through the opposing spliced loop eye. The free loop end was captured in the hook at the end of the helicopter's sling line. During the helicopter's liftoff, the spliced end of the line at the helicopter's long-line hook released, allowing the cedar shake load to fall free, striking and fatally injuring one of the ground crew personnel. Post-crash examination of the line revealed that one end of the line had unraveled, and that the splice at the opposing end was not spliced in accordance with acceptable industry standards.
Probable cause
The use of the improper long-line cable by the ground crew, and its subsequent separation from the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA128
- Event ID
- 20001211X10709
- Case number
- SEA98LA128
- 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, damage. 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: 2306bfd90eadea34c593797b78ac0ca71dc7d3447ee133e6e2188a4ab092f0fc; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:30:47.303Z.