FTW01LA205 · Hughes 269-C
Hughes 269-C · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From F81 · Lubbock, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01LA205
- 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 269-C
- 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
- N7472F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F81 · Lubbock, TXTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several witnesses near the accident site observed smoke and fire trailing from the helicopter while on an aerial application flight. The pilot also felt heat and saw smoke in the cockpit, which was followed by a loss of engine power. A witness, who was driving in a truck next to the cotton field, reported that he observed the helicopter flying about 20-25 feet in the air when it "suddenly fell at a slight angle, fell from the sky, and hit the ground, sending white smoke and dust." After the accident, the pilot stated that he thought that the spray system had malfunctioned which resulted in chemicals being pumped into the engine. A detailed examination of the helicopter and the engine did not reveal a reason for the loss of engine power. There was no evidence found on the airframe of an in-flight fire, however, there was some thermal damage found on the spray system. The reason for the loss of engine power was not determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power while maneuvering for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was a malfunction of the spray system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01LA205
- Event ID
- 20010914X01944
- Case number
- FTW01LA205
- 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, coordinates. 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: e67ee864e5bfbfbcba0faadb81dce4f1f1585d6a8f4722a7bdd047a328abb162; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:34:39.313Z.