ATL86FA218 · Hughes 269C
Hughes 269C · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Greenwood County Airport (GRD) to Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL86FA218
- 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 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
- N7442F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenwood County Airport (GRD), Greenwood, SCTo Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NC
- 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, compliance with ad, not followed
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, service bulletin/letter, disregarded
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, recordkeeping, inaccurate
- Rotor drive system, main gearbox/transmission › Fatigue
- Rotor drive system, main gearbox/transmission › Life expired
- Rotor drive system, main gearbox/transmission › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS FLYING AN UNDERGROUND CABLE PATROL AT 500-600 FT AGL WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED. THE PLT REPORTED PWR WAS SET AT 20' HG, 3,000 RPM WHEN A 'VERY LOUD POP' WAS HEARD. THE PLT LIKENED THE SOUND TO BEING HIT BY GROUND FIRE. THE ACFT YAWED AND THE ENG OVERSPED. AN AUTOROTATION WAS PERFORMED INTO AN ABANDONED MINING PIT. THE ACFT NOSED UP AND ROLLED OVER ON ITS RIGHT SIDE. THE PLT STATED THAT THE ENG WOULD RESPOND TO THROTTLE BUT THE MAIN ROTOR WOULD NOT FOLLOW PWR CHANGES. THE MAIN ROTOR TRANSMISSION TO HAVE A RING GEAR CARRIER FAILURE. AD 81-1704 AND RELATED SERVICE NOTICE CONCERNING THIS PART HAD NOT BEEN COMPLIED WITH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL86FA218
- Event ID
- 20001213X34377
- Case number
- ATL86FA218
- 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: 63969d90199b792953d504c2a237daad0ad32670fbccff345af0558513c677c7; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:09:10.199Z.