DFW07CA037 · Hughes 269B
Hughes 269B · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during landing
From Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM) to Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA037
- 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
- 0
- 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 269B
- 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
- N9396F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM), Houma, LATo Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM)
- 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
- Landing
- 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 (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, cylinder › Cracked
- Ignition system, spark plug › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 2,873-hour flight instructor, who reported having accumulated 550-hours in the same make and model helicopter, reported that during a training flight, while practicing touchdown autorotations, the helicopter shuttered with a slight vibration through the airframe on climb out. The flight instructor added that the vibration stopped and he elected to continue the climb turning toward a downwind leg for the next autorotation. The helicopter shuttered again, this time much more violently, while on the downwind leg. The pilot stated on the NTSB Form 6120.1, Pilot/Operator Accident/Incident Report, that "I felt like the gearbox was locking up or something." The rated student pilot who was flying the helicopter at the time then declared "you've got the controls" to the instructor. The flight instructor immediately entered autorotation and the shutter stopped. In an attempt to regain powered flight the instructor then reapplied throttle which immediately created a violent vibration again and he decided to roll throttle completely off and continue with the emergency landing. The altitude at the onset was approximately 400 feet above ground level (agl). The flight instructor initiated a 180-degree turn autorotation to align the helicopter into the prevailing wind. The flight instructor also stated that the transfer of controls and attempt to regain powered flight, followed by the delay in entering the autorational turn, created a low airspeed and low rotor RPM situation that made the successful landing not possible. The flight instructor stated that he "waited until the last second and pulled the collective up to the stops and prayed." The helicopter landed hard and managed to remain in the upright position. The flight instructor and the rated student pilot were not injured. An FAA inspector, who traveled to the site, noted that the spark plug and helicoil was broken out on the number two cylinder. Further inspection of the number two cylinder revealed three separate cracks in the cylinder wall. At the time of the accident, the winds were reported from 070 degrees at 10 knots, gusting to 15 knots.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power as a result of a cracked engine cylinder and broken spark plug which resulted in a hard landing. A factor was that it was not possible to attain proper rotor RPM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA037
- Event ID
- 20070130X00110
- Case number
- DFW07CA037
- 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: 9f06e827d65a2e3862c37ec72c8a56c095558b1bf922572f7ba1ba20d110479c; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:09:04.267Z.