SEA01LA118 · Hughes 369D
Hughes 369D · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Aurora State Airport (UAO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA118
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- N69PE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aurora State Airport (UAO), Aurora, ORTo 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
- Loss of engine power
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, nozzle › Collapsed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a maintenance test flight, the pilot reported that while performing blade tracking procedures, a rotor droop was noticed followed by engine rpm decay. The pilot tried to increase engine power, however, the engine did not respond. During the autorotation, beginning at about 450 feet AGL, the helicopter landed hard. The main rotors subsequently contacted and severed the tail boom. Inspection of the engine revealed that the fuel nozzle filter was found to be completely covered with a dark green/brown colored substance and was collapsed. The fuel filter bowl was removed and a volume of water was present in the fuel that was drained from the filter bowl. Samples were taken and analyzed. The analysis "strongly indicated water contamination and possible fungal or bacteria growth in the fuel supply." The pilot reported that the fuel supplier and mobile pick-up truck all had filtering devices. The helicopter was not equipped with an external airframe mounted filter.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation as a result of a collapsed fuel nozzle filter screen. Contamination that blocked the fuel nozzle screen and water contamination were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA118
- Event ID
- 20010618X01191
- Case number
- SEA01LA118
- 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: 2033563eaa114e539a6f4a98744686f91308fd183bba34bb8d132da0fb1418b1; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:53:03.320Z.