NYC94FA014 · McDonnell Douglas 369E
MPW Industrial Services McDonnell Douglas 369E · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Cleveland, OH (no airport) to Hebron, OH (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94FA014
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N1605Z
- Operator
- MPW Industrial Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland, OH (no airport)To Hebron, OH (no airport)
- 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- 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
- Object › Wire, transmission
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SEVERAL WITNESSES DRIVING IN THEIR CARS OBSERVED THE HELICOPTER PRIOR TO IMPACT AND SAID THEY SAW THE HELICOPTER HEADING SOUTHBOUND AT A LOW ALTITUDE IN FOG, TURN TO A WESTERLY HEADING, REVERSE DIRECTION ABOUT 120 DEGREES, DESCEND AND STRIKE WIRES THAT WERE IN THE HELICOPTER'S FLIGHT PATH. A WITNESS WHO WAS A PILOT SAID, '...AS THE CRAFT DESCENDED I COULD SEE THAT THE OUTLINE OF THE FUSELAGE WAS BLURRED BY MISTY RAIN AT THE LOWER ALTITUDE (MARGINAL IFR AT THE MOMENT).' AFTER STRIKING THE WIRES THE TAIL ROTOR SEPARATED, THE HELICOPTER SPUN COUNTER CLOCKWISE UNTIL THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES IMPACTED THE GROUND. EXAMINATION OF THE HELICOPTER AND ENGINE REVEALED NO DISCREPANCIES.
Probable cause
AN IN FLIGHT COLLISION WITH POWER LINES WHILE THE PILOT WAS MANEUVERING THE HELICOPTER AT A LOW ALTITUDE. A FACTOR IN THIS ACCIDENT WAS REDUCED VISIBILITY DUE TO FOGGY WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94FA014
- Event ID
- 20001211X13627
- Case number
- NYC94FA014
- 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: 739cc1d996e01fd095473a27fd7636496550db02c0f093686297e3e71c4686fa; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:20:37.852Z.