ATL82DA258 · Hughes 269C
The Helicopter Hughes 269C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Louisville, KY to Louisville, KY
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL82DA258
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N8982F
- Operator
- Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville, KYTo Louisville, KY
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Louisville, KY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING BEFORE TAKING OFF ON AN AERIAL TRAFFIC PATROL FOR A LOCAL RADIO STATION. HE WAS ISSUED A SPECIAL VFR CLEARANCE TO FOLLOW A PRE-ESTABLISHED ROUTE. HOWEVER, AFTER DEPARTING, HE ENCOUNTERED THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY. HE RETURNED TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT AND HOVERED UNTIL THE THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY SUBSIDED. AFTER ABOUT 30 MINUTES, THE PILOT DEPARTED AGAIN, BUT WAS UNABLE TO CONDUCT THE FLIGHT AS PLANNED. WITH THE WEATHER DETERIORATING, HE RECEIVED CLEARANCE TO ANOTHER AIRPORT. WHEN HE WAS ABOUT ONE MILE FROM THE AIRPORT, THE VISIBILITY WAS REPORT AS 1/2 MILE. HE REPORTED THAT WHEN HE WAS ABOUT 100 FT AGL, HE TURNED NORTHEAST INTO THE WIND TO GET CLOSE TO THE BOUNDRY ROAD AND FENCE AND TO GET VISUAL REFERENCES. ALSO, HE STATED THAT THE VISIBILITY THROUGH THE BUBBLE WAS DISTORTED BY THE HEAVY DOWNPOUR AND BUBBLE FOG. WHILE ATTEMPTING A HOVER LANDING, HE TOUCHED DOWN, TAIL LOW, MOVING REARWARD. THE REAR PART OF THE SKIDS AND THE TAIL ROTOR HIT THE GROUND AND CONTROL WAS LOST.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL82DA258
- Event ID
- 20020917X04251
- Case number
- ATL82DA258
- 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: db24a0c50934c96913a19087671b8a536ec342046ec298fe2033e2dddf73cdff; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:54:51.387Z.