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ANC98TA162 · Hughes 369D

27 Sept 1998 · Homer, AK, United States

Hughes 369D · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing

From M/V NANCY H. to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
ANC98TA162
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
Government
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
N1091P
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From M/V NANCY H.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
Public Aircraft
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
Standing · engine(s) operating
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
Propeller/rotor contact to person
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Minor

Cause areas

  • Passenger › Instructions, written/verbal, not followed

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The helicopter was engaged in a partial power toe in landing to disembark two passengers. The passenger on the left side walked uphill, and was struck by the main rotor blades, sustaining serious injuries. The helicopter sustained minor damage to the rotor system, and the pilot relocated to a safe landing site. According to the other passenger and the pilot, the passengers had been briefed to not walk uphill when exiting the helicopter. The pilot stated that his attention was diverted between the passengers on each side of the helicopter, and maintaining the helicopter's position.

Probable cause

The passenger not following the instructions given by the pilot. Contributing factors were the rising terrain and the pilot's diverted attention during the toe in landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC98TA162
Event ID
20001211X10998
Case number
ANC98TA162
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: 48cc8b44f8b7f4854d1a129f6904aced05a573201b08fbab506b314a9edf43ed; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:21:22.059Z.