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DFW05TA056 · Schweizer 269D

18 Jan 2005 · San Antonio, TX, United States

Schweizer 269D · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering

From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF) to Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF)

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Event

NTSB case
DFW05TA056
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 269D

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
N296RL
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, TXTo Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, 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
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 collision with terrain/water
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(cfi) › Dynamic rollover, inadvertent
  • Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
  • Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate

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 3,206-hour flight instructor reported that during the student's first training flight, the student manipulated the controls for approximately two minutes until the helicopter began to drift left and slightly forward. The helicopter then "suddenly descended," and the instructor began to apply corrective input to the controls as the front left skid struck the ground. The instructor "felt the helicopter begin to roll to the left at this pivot point." He attempted to correct the situation prior to reaching the critical rollover angle of the helicopter, but the helicopter continued to roll and came to rest on its left side.

Probable cause

The inadequate supervision and delayed remedial action by the flight instructor, which resulted in an inadvertent dynamic rollover.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DFW05TA056
Event ID
20050203X00128
Case number
DFW05TA056
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: ed85c62aa21a37b841d4e25cfb2e00530d693f794c98a49440e8f8b7d3303e9f; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:04:59.177Z.