LAX87LA199 · Hughes 369D
Hughes 369D · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From TAMUNINGS to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA199
- 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
- 2 · 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 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
- N10995
- Operator
- Adriatic Sea
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From TAMUNINGSTo 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
- 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
- Rotor system, main rotor blade › Separation
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
A HUGHES 369D, OPERATED OFF OF A FISHING VESSEL, WENT OUT OF CONTROL AND CRASHED IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN, NR GUAM. THE ACCIDENT WAS WITNESSED BY THE SHIP'S CAPTAIN. HIS STATEMENT INDICATED ONE OF THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES SEPARATED IN FLT WHILE THE HELO WAS ORBITING THE SHIP AT APRX 200 FT MSL. DURING AN EARLIER FLT A VIBRATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAIN ROTOR SYSTEM WAS EXPERIENCED. THE DISCREPANCY WAS REFERRED TO THE A&P MECHANIC ON THE BOAT, WHO WORKED ON THE HELO FOR ABOUT ONE HOUR WITH THE PLT. THE HELO WAS THEN TEST FLOWN. THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES OF THE HUGHES 369D ARE ATTACHED TO THE MAIN ROTOR HUB WITH STAINLESS STEEL RETENTION STRAPS. THE MANUFACTURER OUTLINES A PROCEDURE DESIGNED TO HELP PREVENT MAIN ROTOR HUB COMPONENT CORROSION ON HELICOPTERS OPERATED IN MARINE ENVIRONMENTS. RECORDS MAINTAINED AT THE HELO MAINTENANCE BASED REVEALED THAT SUFFICIENT SUPPLIES WERE NOT AVAILABLE TO ACCOMPLISH THE PROCEDURE ON BOARD THE SHIP. THE ACFT WAS NOT RECOVERED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA199
- Event ID
- 20001213X30734
- Case number
- LAX87LA199
- 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: 6a0350599b285cb4fb75074143a12eebc1e8eca4ae0b4300b15075183278f7a1; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:09:28.357Z.