NYC06LA106 · Schweizer 269C
Schweizer 269C · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP) to Westchester County Airport (HPN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA106
- 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
- N38DM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP), Islip, NYTo Westchester County Airport (HPN), White Plains, NY
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, bearing › Failure
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 in cruise flight, about 1,400 feet above ground level, when the flight instructor heard a "rumbling" from beneath and behind the cockpit. Soon after, the rumbling became louder, the oil temperature increased, the oil pressure dropped to "zero," and the engine stopped producing power. The flight instructor adjusted the flight controls for autorotation, and selected a high school athletic field for the forced landing. He attempted to extend the helicopter's glide to reach the field, while maintaining rotor rpm. Just prior to touchdown, the tail of the helicopter struck the athletic field's perimeter fence, which resulted in a loss of control, and collision with terrain. Examination of the helicopter's engine revealed that the oil suction screen was completely occluded by metal particles. The number 3 cylinder was removed, and the associated piston and connecting rod were stuck in the cylinder bore. The connecting rod was fractured at the yoke, and free of the crankshaft. The connecting rod cap was fragmented, and the fragments were found scattered in the oil sump. The number 3 connecting rod bearing material was completely extruded and fragmented, and a mode of failure could not be determined. Examination of the engine maintenance records revealed that the engine had accrued 2,157 total hours of operation, 759 total hours since overhaul, and 90 total hours since the number 1 cylinder assembly was replaced due to low compression and a broken piston ring.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power due to the failure of the number 3 connecting rod bearing. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the emrgency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA106
- Event ID
- 20060522X00603
- Case number
- NYC06LA106
- 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: b2ca989e1d37951ada7f6b84bca12edbb3794154c8df5cf7a1b7bbf061e14f0a; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:47:01.926Z.