FTW03LA134 · Hughes 369HS
Hughes 369HS · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Montgomery, TX to Conroe, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA134
- 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 369HS
- 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
- N16Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery, TXTo Conroe, TX
- 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 · hover out of ground effect
- 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 › Loss of tail rotor effectiveness, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and his passenger/observer were assisting local authorities during a search mission involving a boating incident on the lake. The pilot flew the helicopter 20-30 feet over the water on a north-south pass parallel to the shoreline. Based on the observers sighting in the water, the pilot turned the helicopter to the left (made a 180 degree turn), flew over the lake, and then inbound near the shoreline. While hovering out of ground effect on a west southwest direction, the helicopter encountered a loss of tail rotor effectiveness and entered a spin to the right, which the pilot was unable to arrest. The helicopter impacted the water, and came to rest on its left side. The weather observation facility reported the wind from 130 degrees at 9 knots. The main rotor system hub assembly and components and the tail rotor driveshaft exhibited damage consistent with sudden stoppage associated with fuselage/water/ground. Metallurgical examination revealed that the main rotor driveshaft and, the tail rotor driveshaft fractured in torsional overload. Examination of the helicopter did not reveal any discrepancies or anomalies that would have prevented operation of the helicopter prior to the impact.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to control the helicopter after encountering loss of tail rotor effectiveness. A contributing factor was the unfavorable winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA134
- Event ID
- 20030421X00536
- Case number
- FTW03LA134
- 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: 416c42af3619b487ca2c5e70dfa7c065fa88e3d2f6a2c14e3f0598b8475db960; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:23:33.821Z.