IAD05TA058 · Hughes 369FF
Hughes 369FF · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid while maneuvering
From Quantico Marine Corps Airfield / Turner Field (NYG) to Quantico Marine Corps Airfield / Turner Field (NYG)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's flight rules. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05TA058
- 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 369FF
- 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
- N5252Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quantico Marine Corps Airfield / Turner Field (NYG), QUANTICO, VATo Quantico Marine Corps Airfield / Turner Field (NYG)
- 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 Possible conflict
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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
- Flightcrew › Altitude/clearance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to perform "fast rope" insertions by FBI helicopter to the roof of a one-story training structure with a second-story facade attached. The helicopter approached the building from the front, with two jumpers posted on skid-mounted pods on either side of the aircraft. One jumper was deployed from the left pod, and the flight crew then decided to reposition the helicopter over the building prior to deploying the jumper from the right pod. While repositioning, the helicopter dragged the right skid on the building. The pilot attempted to free the skid, and increase the helicopter's altitude above the structure. During the climb, the right skid snagged the structure; the helicopter rolled inverted, and then struck trees and terrain. Following the accident, the pilot reported that there were no deficiencies with the handling and performance of the helicopter.
Probable cause
The flight crew's failure to maintain adequate altitude/clearance from a building, which resulted in contact with the building, dynamic rollover, and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05TA058
- Event ID
- 20050509X00573
- Case number
- IAD05TA058
- 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: da08f8fbba3163beddd274fc1242ac4780f253738f441754d5d349c04cb24122; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:02:23.043Z.