NYC07CA070 · Schweizer 269-C
Schweizer 269-C · Accident during landing
From Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport (JHW) to Titusville Airport (6G1)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07CA070
- 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 269-C
- 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
- N515JM
- Operator
- William D. Fritz · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chautauqua County-Jamestown Airport (JHW), Jamestown, NYTo Titusville Airport (6G1), Titusville, PA
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the Schweizer 269-C reported that he diverted to an airport because of snow showers along his path of flight. After having lunch, the pilot decided to return to his home base instead of continuing to his originally-intended destination. Weather radar indicated snow showers and clear areas en route to the pilot's home base. After about 30 minutes of flight, snowfall intensity increased, and visibility was reduced to the point where the pilot became concerned that he could not see obstructions. The pilot then decided to land near a farm house. He circled the landing area, and then made an approach into the wind. As he "approached the hover, loose snow combined with the snow covered total white surface" caused him to lose ground contact. The helicopter touched down, and the pilot "suddenly" felt the main rotor blades impact the ground on the right side of the helicopter. Photographs of the landing area indicated a slight rise in elevation on the right side of the touchdown zone. According to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, there were no preimpact mechanical anomalies, and the aft portion of the right landing skid had frozen dirt attached to it. The pilot did not indicate he had obtained a weather briefing.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to continue the landing attempt in whiteout conditions, which resulted in his disorientation, and the helicopter's subsequent dynamic rollover. Factors included the whiteout conditions, and the pilot's inadequate weather evaluation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07CA070
- Event ID
- 20070426X00457
- Case number
- NYC07CA070
- 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: 5c7a69c4250c7e84310b974e91fb953dec24c2e4844d2b71dbb07e4fbf2287f4; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:34:55.905Z.