ATL06LA085 · Hughes 269A
Salisbury Helicopters Hughes 269A · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Concord-Padgett Regional Airport (JQF) to Concord-Padgett Regional Airport (JQF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA085
- 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
- N269RS
- Operator
- Salisbury Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Concord-Padgett Regional Airport (JQF), Concord, NCTo Concord-Padgett Regional Airport (JQF), Concord, NC
- 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
- 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
- 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 student pilot stated that he was practicing for his private pilot helicopter check ride with his certificated flight instructor (CFI), and was preparing for a simulated engine failure. He stated that he had the flight controls, and counted down "3, 2, 1, and cracked the throttle from 2900 rpm to 2400 rpm." However, the engine "died" and the CFI took over the controls. The CFI entered an autorotation, and maneuvered the helicopter into an uneven field. The student pilot stated that the "CFI flared the helicopter, and when the helicopter hit it flipped onto the right side." The CFI stated that he was conducting a training flight with a student pilot. They found an open field to practice settling with power maneuvers, and simulated engine failures. During the simulated engine failure the student pilot decreased the engine rpm, and it went to "0 rpm". The CFI stated that he took over the flight controls, and entered an autorotation into the open field. Upon touch down the helicopter rolled over onto its right side. The CFI did not report any flight control anomalies prior to the accident, and a postaccident inspection of the helicopter disclosed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical problems.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons while maneuvering, resulting in a forced landing to uneven terrain and a roll over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA085
- Event ID
- 20060622X00797
- Case number
- ATL06LA085
- 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: e02516ed0f4e802158dad2cefa3c3e35f2c519a9e034087cd13abcd0f5d70cbf; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:52:36.179Z.