DFW05CA144 · Hughes 269A
Hughes 269A · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From North Texas Regional Airport Perrin Field (GYI) to Sherman, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05CA144
- 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 269A
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 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
- N62269
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Texas Regional Airport Perrin Field (GYI), Sherman, TXTo Sherman, 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 in 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Faa inspector › Remedial action, delayed
- Pilot in command › Directional 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
A pilot applicant was demonstrating a simulated power failure from a two-foot hover to an FAA inspector when he lost control of the helicopter. The helicopter drifted aft and to the left before it impacted the ground and rolled on its left side. The FAA inspector's attempts to recover the helicopter were unsuccessful. According to the FAA Rotorcraft Flying Handbook, common errors when executing a power failure in a hover are; failing to use sufficient proper antitorque pedal when power is reduced, failing to stop all sideward and backward movement prior to touchdown, failing to apply up-collective pitch properly, resulting in a hard touchdown, failing to touch down at a level attitude, and not rolling the throttle completely to idle. In addition, "A helicopter is susceptible to a lateral rolling tendency, called dynamic rollover, when lifting off of the surface. For dynamic rollover to occur, some factor has to first cause the helicopter to roll or pivot around a skid, or landing gear wheel, until its critical rollover angle is reached. Then, beyond this point, main rotor thrust continues the roll and recovery is impossible. If the critical angle is exceeded, the helicopter rolls on its side regardless of the cyclic corrections made."
Probable cause
The applicant's failure to maintain directional control of the helicopter during a simulated power failure from a hover and the FAA inspector's delayed remedial action resulted in a dynamic rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05CA144
- Event ID
- 20050630X00907
- Case number
- DFW05CA144
- 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: c23464f2694582005b115e7688c41205551be24207973849c5570780c4488bbe; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:00:36.898Z.