FTW00LA216 · Schweizer 269C
Schweizer 269C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From SWI to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA216
- 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
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
- N298SH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SWITo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Rotor drive system, clutch assembly › Failure, total
- Rotor drive system, clutch assembly › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the helicopter was on final approach at 20 feet agl and 40 knots when it 'abruptly yawed left.' The pilot noted that the engine RPM 'pegged off the dial.' The pilot lowered the collective and rolled the throttle to idle. Approximately 5 feet agl, the pilot increased the collective and applied 'slight' aft cyclic. The helicopter impacted the ground on the rear section of the right skid, bounced, and rolled over onto its left side. Examination of the helicopter at the accident site revealed that the clutch cable had separated. The clutch cable was examined and found to have failed as a result of high-cycle fatigue crack propagation on the individual wires. The initiation of the fatigue cracks correlated to an area of contact between the wires; however, there was no evidence of manufacturing or material defects in the cable assembly that could be associated with the failure. Examination of the failed cable revealed that it may have been difficult to notice the failing clutch cable wires without disassembly. According to the helicopter's maintenance manual , disassembly and inspection of the clutch cable and clutch assembly is to be completed every 400 hours. At the time of the accident, the helicopter had accumulated a total of 757.5 flight hours and 398.9 hours since the last 400-hour inspection.
Probable cause
the total failure of the clutch cable during landing, which resulted from fatigue cracking of the cable's individual wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA216
- Event ID
- 20001212X21471
- Case number
- FTW00LA216
- 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: aeb712f56de66b6543cb03940b0280e59195d0320ed461b3e3d64f61fb05422e; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:08:50.269Z.