FTW00TA116 · Hughes OH-6A
Hughes OH-6A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00TA116
- 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
- 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 OH-6A
- Aircraft type
- Hughes OH-6
- 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
- N6187Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (ELP), TXTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Partial 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
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter's engine experienced a partial loss of engine power while maneuvering at 60 feet agl and a forward airspeed of approximately 10 knots. In response to the loss of engine power, the pilot 'increased power, pulled up on the collective, in order to increase airspeed.' The engine immediately began to 'coast down.' The pilot added that due to the relatively low altitude, slow airspeed, and insufficient rotor rpm available for the autorotation, the helicopter landed hard. Examination of the engine revealed that a power control (PC) line, which ran between the fuel control unit and governor, had separated. Metallurgical examination revealed that the PC line failed due to fatigue. A bend in the line was observed at the location corresponding to the base of the ferrule at the failed end, indicating that excessive force may have been used during installation of the line. It is likely that fatigue initiated due to the additional stresses placed on the tube by this bend.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain rotor rpm during an autorotation, which resulted in a hard landing. A factor was the partial loss of engine power resulting from the separation of the power control line due to fatigue, as a consequence of improper installation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00TA116
- Event ID
- 20001212X20827
- Case number
- FTW00TA116
- 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: 154d979f6c032d3ab131dfb72750d4d74e417d53511f7bc6b886487e035ce758; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:15:43.868Z.