SEA02LA150 · Hughes 269A
Hughes 269A · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Norman Grier Field (S36) to S36
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA150
- 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 269A
- 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
- N90271
- Operator
- Charles Douglas
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norman Grier Field (S36), Covington, WATo S36
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
In a written statement the student pilot reported that the accident flight was his first attempt to hover the helicopter, solo. He reported that after his instructor exited the helicopter, and as he raised the collective in preparation for takeoff "The helicopter jumped into the air and moved to the right." He said that he inadvertently over corrected for the situation, and the helicopter started to move toward where his instructor was standing. In an effort to control the movement of the helicopter he "...immediately pulled the cyclic to rear." The helicopter's tail rotor subsequently struck the ground, and sustained substantial damage.
Probable cause
Aircraft control not maintained while hovering.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA150
- Event ID
- 20020820X01438
- Case number
- SEA02LA150
- 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: 40bed2c2e3c40cada5218c30cb794aef4b499e82de9cbe1527e8a55be5029d62; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:33:00.705Z.