DEN05CA079 · Schweizer 269C
Silver State Helicopters Schweizer 269C · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB) to Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05CA079
- 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
- N958CP
- Operator
- Silver State Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB), Pueblo, COTo Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB), Pueblo, CO
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Dual student › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the flight instructor, they were conducting steep approaches to runway 26L. The first three approaches and landings were uneventful. During the fourth approach, approximately 10 to 15 feet agl, the student noted that the rpm's had dropped into the yellow arc around 2800 rpm. The student stated that he "lowered the collective and rolled on the throttle." The helicopter "dropped dramatically." The student attempted to cushion the landing by adding collective. The helicopter impacted the ground and "spun left" approximately 180 degrees before coming to a rest. An examination of helicopter showed substantial damage to the tail boom, skids, tail rotor drive shaft, and the frame. An examination of the helicopter's systems revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the student pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter during the landing. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the student pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05CA079
- Event ID
- 20050614X00763
- Case number
- DEN05CA079
- 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: ae13511fb2e82291426bea729b730e9dbbe33f17e4b31ca4aed8a80cfc578177; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:54:08.876Z.