CHI04LA021 · Schweizer 269C
Schweizer 269C · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Ann Arbor Municipal Airport (ARB) to Ann Arbor, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA021
- 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
Schweizer 269C
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 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
- N191GC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ann Arbor Municipal Airport (ARB), Ann Arbor, MITo Ann Arbor, MI
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was substantially damaged during a hard landing following a loss of engine power and subsequent autorotation. The flight instructor reported that shortly after takeoff, within two miles of the departure airport, the helicopter suddenly yawed to the left and the engine began to uncontrollably increase and decrease speed. He noted that it sounded as if the throttle was being rolled on and off. He added that no warning lights were illuminated. The instructor reported that he took control of the heliopter at that time. He stated that he instructed the dual student to apply carburetor heat. However, the engine continued to rev and was "making a popping sound, like it was backfiring." He noted a drop in rotor speed, so he elected to initiate an autorotation. He estimated their altitude was 500 feet above ground level at that point. "The safest spot I could see was a paved road in a subdivision; we struck the ground hard damaging the helicopter," according to the instructor. A post-accident inspection revealed no anomalies. The engine was subsequently removed and torn down. No abnormalities were found during the disassembly and examination. Weather conditions recorded at the departure airport, approximately 20 minutes after the accident, included a temperature of 9 degrees Celcius and dew point of 1 degree Celcius. Data concerning the probability of carburetor icing was obtained from Transport Canada. The conditions bordered regions of serious icing at any power setting and moderate icing at cruise power.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to carburetor ice. Weather conditions conducive to the formation of carburetor ice and a roadway were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA021
- Event ID
- 20031107X01874
- Case number
- CHI04LA021
- 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: 0aa6323fa1a6ceb2db8415f086b1742196b43420de4a539e7eee224de33c5b23; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:16:46.598Z.