IAD99GA013 · Schweizer 269C
Baltimore Police Department Schweizer 269C · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Martin State Airport (MTN) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operation. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD99GA013
- 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 Possible conflict
- 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
Schweizer 269C
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 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
- N2100B
- Operator
- Baltimore Police Department
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Martin State Airport (MTN), MDTo 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
- En route · climb to 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)
- 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
- Engine assembly › Improper
- Engine assembly, connecting rod bolt › Failure
- Manufacturer › Condition(s)/step(s) insufficiently defined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The police helicopter was performing a police mission less than 500 above ground level when the engine lost power. The pilot was unable to reach a suitable landing area and maintain rotor rpm. The helicopter struck trees and a light pole, landed hard on a road, and slid into a fence. Examination revealed the #2 connecting rod had separated from the crankshaft. A torque check on the remaining connecting rod bolts found all below the minimum specified. A work action (strike) had been in effect at the engine manufacturer at the time of engine assembly, and production continued with management and replacement workers. During assembly the crankshaft had been replaced for an unknown reason. After the crankshaft was replaced, new connecting rods were attached, but not properly tightened. Replacement workers manned the two assembly stations identified as most probable for replacement of the crankshaft and failure to tighten the connecting rod bolts. Although long time employees knew the correct procedures for documentation of a replaced crankshaft, no specific written instructions were available for the replacement employees. The engine failed at 45.7 hours total time.
Probable cause
inadequate assembly instructions from the engine manufacturer which resulted in improper engine assembly, and subsequent power loss over unsuitable terrain, with insufficient altitude for a successful autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD99GA013
- Event ID
- 20001211X11437
- Case number
- IAD99GA013
- 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: 3a0eb3205376054ebec0477374d556df305b103adc6a0b2eb45b334891386522; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:20:10.493Z.