SEA05CA149 · Hughes 269A
Hughes 269A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Laurel Municipal Airport (6S8) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05CA149
- 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
- N801CP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laurel Municipal Airport (6S8), Laurel, MTTo not recorded
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, 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
The commercial pilot was taking his initial flight instructor check ride in the helicopter with an FAA inspector acting as the check pilot. According to the pilot, during performance of a pinnacle approach, on final approach, about 300 to 400 yards from the pinnacle, he "got a bit shallow." He informed the check pilot that he "was going to level-off to regain a steep approach angle." After correcting the approach angle, he then continued the descent. Toward the end of the approach, the pilot began increasing lift to terminate the approach at a hover. He "had to do this somewhat early as we were still a bit high and a bit too far from the pinnacle." As he started to glance at the instruments, the check pilot called for a go-around. The pilot began the go-around (increasing collective and adding forward cyclic) and "then noticed our RPMs were low." According to the check pilot, "the approach to the pinnacle was a little shallow, but for the wind conditions was acceptable. At approximately 50 feet above the pinnacle, and with about 40 knots airspeed, the approach began to get steeper. I called for a go around. [The pilot] responded by lowering collective and moving aft on the cyclic." The check pilot "noticed the airspeed slow to around 20 knots" and "observed a reduction in rotor RPM and a large increase of manifold pressure." The helicopter began to yaw to the right rotating approximately 280 to 300 degrees clockwise prior to impacting the ground on its right side.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain rotor rpm while executing a pinnacle approach, which resulted in a loss of control and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05CA149
- Event ID
- 20050816X01259
- Case number
- SEA05CA149
- 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: b5cecdbb113987e8b0f1f75d8ce596c589bf6290172559349b710f9f5a0bd0e3; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:57:03.491Z.