Mauna Kea Helicopters Hughes 369D accident
Hughes 369D · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Waimea Kohala Airport (MUE) to Hilo International Airport (ITO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA224
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N1100A
- Operator
- Mauna Kea Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waimea Kohala Airport (MUE), KAMUELA, HITo Hilo International Airport (ITO), Hilo, HI
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
- Fluid, oil › Lack of
- Turbine assembly, shaft bearing › Failure, total
- Turbine assembly, shaft bearing › Overtemperature
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE SIGHTSEEING FLIGHT THE PILOT INDICATED HE OBSERVED AN ENGINE CHIP LIGHT. HE INITIATED A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING FROM HIS CRUISE ALTITUDE OF 1,500 FT MSL. UPON REACHING 500 FT AGL, A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER OCCURRED, AND THE PILOT INITIATED AN AUTOROTATIVE DESCENT TO A ROAD. SECONDS PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN, A TOUR BUS OBSTRUCTED THE APPROACH PATH AND THE PILOT ALTERED HIS COURSE. DURING THE SUBSEQUENT HARD LANDING, THE TAIL BOOM WAS SEVERED. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THE #8 BEARING FAILED BECAUSE OF A LACK OF LUBRICATION. HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT THE OPERATOR HAD OBSERVED THAT THE ENGINE WAS LEAKING OIL. THE OPERATOR CONTINUED TO UTILIZE THE HELICOPTER IN AIR TAXI SERVICE WITHOUT PERFORMING ANY RECORDED MAINTENANCE.
Probable cause
THE TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO A FAILURE OF THE NUMBER 8 BEARING. THE BEARING FAILURE WAS CAUSED BY A LACK OF ENGINE OIL SUPPLY AND INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA224
- Event ID
- 20001211X14694
- Case number
- LAX92LA224
- 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: c1eb74d554301513a4af19a0a4b1a1ede1fcf8d9b102427256142f02ca34b877; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:46:43.912Z.