CHI06CA029 · Hughes 269A
Hughes 269A · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Omaha, NE to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA029
- 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
- N1020Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Omaha, NETo 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 engine power
- 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 › Descent, excessive
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was damaged during landing following a reported loss of engine power. The pilot reported that while on approach to hover, the engine lost power as he was passing through 60 feet above ground level. He stated that he "pulled back on the stick to slow down and enter autorotation, and began to roll off the throttle and lower the collective." He further stated; "Almost immediately I felt the power come up and the needles joined accompanied by the aircraft yawing. I attempted to apply power and recover but my rate of descent and altitude along with the adverse yaw complicated my recovery." The helicopter subsequently impacted the ground and slid to a stop. Postaccident examination of the helicopter failed to reveal any pre-impact anomalies.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for an undetermined reason and the pilot's improper execution of the emergency procedure which resulted in an excessive descent rate and subsequent hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA029
- Event ID
- 20051219X01991
- Case number
- CHI06CA029
- 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: 25df0fd71f1dd95bb936e2e59c55dda7ec645f245a2bb7bde310acd529ed37f0; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:15:36.151Z.