LAX90LA210 · Hughes 269B
Hughes 269B · Accident: roll over during landing
From Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB) to Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90LA210
- 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 269B
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 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
- N691RR
- Operator
- Dolezal, Todd R. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB)To Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Roll over
- 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 › Slope capability, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID HE WAS FLYING UP A VALLEY IN ROLLING HILL CONTRY AND ENCOUNTERED A SEVERE AND SUDDEN GUST OF WIND AS THE HELICOPTER FLEW OVER A RIDGE LINE AT A VERY LOW ALTITUDE. THE PILOT SAID THE WIND GUST WAS ACCCOMPANIED BY STRONG TURBULENCE AND A SEVERE DOWN DRAFT. THE PILOT SAID THE HELICOPTER WAS FORCED DOWNWARD INTO THE GROUND AND HE WAS ABLE TO ARREST THE DESCENT AND MAKE A NORMAL SOFT TOUCH DOWN ON THE CREST OF THE RIDGE. THE PILOT SAID THE HELICOPTER ROLLED OVER ON ITS SIDE JUST AFTER TOUCH DOWN.
Probable cause
THIS ACCIDENT WAS DYNAMIC ROLLOVER DUE TO THE TERRAIN SLOPE EXCEEDING THE CAPABILITY OF THE HELICOPTER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90LA210
- Event ID
- 20001212X23452
- Case number
- LAX90LA210
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-06-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 13df72cdab53cbc7d5260ea795229b27c323b4a776b032eddc174ec14b06af44; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:00:04.460Z.