ATL01TA081 · Hughes TH-55
Hughes TH-55 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Liberty County Airport (2J2) to Liberty County Airport (2J2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL01TA081
- 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
- Government
- 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 TH-55
- Aircraft type
- Hughes TH-55
- 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
- N7053X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Liberty County Airport (2J2), Hinesville, GATo Liberty County Airport (2J2), Hinesville, GA
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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 · aerial application
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter lost engine power while spraying insecticide 300 feet above the ground. The pilot was unable to restore power and initiated an emergency descent and autorotative flare. At touchdown, the helicopter leaned to the right in a marshy area and rolled onto its side. The main rotor blades struck the ground. The pilot stated the helicopter had been refueled prior to the flight. Examination of the wreckage revealed the airframe and main rotor blades were bent. The helicopter sustained saltwater submersion damage. There was no evidence of mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A factoe was the lack of suitable terrain upon which an emergency landing could be made, which resulted in a rollover upon touchdown in a marshy area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL01TA081
- Event ID
- 20010720X01465
- Case number
- ATL01TA081
- 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: eaf325aaada48def78d06401528b88052ba1c39d4ede8f9bf6a79f676991c329; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:20:22.944Z.