BFO90FA079 · Hughes 269C
New Horizon Aviation Hughes 269C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From W16 · Winchester, VA to Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO90FA079
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Hughes 269C
- 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
- N1094D
- Operator
- New Horizon Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W16 · Winchester, VATo Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MD
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Rotor drive system › Failure, partial
- Rotor drive system, tail rotor drive shaft coupling › Worn
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO WITNESSES THE ACFT CAME APART IN THE AIR. RADAR DATA SHOWS THE ACFT AT 2600 FT WHEN IT TURNED ABOUT 35 DEGREES RIGHT IN ABOUT 4 SECONDS. THE ACFT SUSTAINED GENERAL DISINTEGATION. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE SPLINES OF THE TAIL ROTOR SPLINED DRIVE SLEEVE WERE EXCESSIVELY WORN, RENDERING LOSS OF TRANSMISSION OF TORQUE TO THE TAIL ROTOR. TWO OTHER HU-269 ACFT HAD SIMILIAR WEAR OF THE SPLINED SLEEVE. 300-HR INSPECTION REQUIRES THAT THE UPPER PULLEY ASSEMBLY BE REMOVED AND INSPECTED, AND BEARINGS LUBRICATED. SCHWEIZER ACFT CORP HAD ISSUED SERVICE BULLETIN N-219 A MONTH BEFORE THE ACCIDENT WHICH REQUIRED RETORQUING OF THE SPLINE RETAINING NUT. HOWEVER, THE ACFT WAS WITHIN THE REQUIRED COMPLIANCE TIME, AND THE BULLETIN WAS NOT DONE.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE TAIL ROTOR DRIVE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM DUE TO A WORN TAIL ROTOR SPLINED DRIVE SLEEVE, AND INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE AND/OR INSPECTION BY THE OPERATOR. CONTRIBUTING TO THE LOSS OF CONTROL WAS THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE ROTOR RPM DUE TO INEXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO90FA079
- Event ID
- 20001212X24202
- Case number
- BFO90FA079
- 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: dd44095d14f8bc5fbf5114c16b8187437c3405b7d1a543a6df743fa53cad8030; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:09:51.643Z.