ATL07LA079 · Hughes 369D
Aerial Solutions Hughes 369D · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC) to Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07LA079
- 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 369D
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 369
- 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
- N11AS
- Operator
- Aerial Solutions
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC), Whiteville, NCTo Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC), Whiteville, 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- 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
- Manufacturer › Material defect
- Turboshaft engine, free turbine governor › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilots, the helicopter was at an altitude between 400 and 500 feet above ground level and at an airspeed between 75 and 80 knots when the engine lost power. The instructor-pilot took control of the helicopter, jettisoned the external load, and autorotated to a nearby corn field. He said that the engine "didn't sound like it was running and the engine out was activated." The helicopter touched down and slid 6 to 8 feet when one of the skids dug into the earth. The helicopter turned to the left about 45 degrees and rolled over on its right side. It was later found that the power turbine governor (PTG) spring had fractured in fatigue. The fracture originated from a drawing mark and was the result of deficiencies in the manufacturing process. The PTG spring "provides force opposing those exerted by rotating flyweights on the position of the governor lever. Failure of the spring would result in a false pneumatic signal to the fuel control and a corresponding reduction in fuel flow. The effect of the false pneumatic signal would be a pronounced reduction in fuel flow. At the reduced fuel flow, the engine could not sustain flight, and the symptoms of the reduced fuel flow might easily be interpreted by the pilot as an engine failure."
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to fatigue fracture of the power turbine governor spring, causing a false pneumatic signal to the fuel control and a corresponding reduction in fuel flow.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07LA079
- Event ID
- 20070503X00505
- Case number
- ATL07LA079
- 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. 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: 8a4a502d108760730e7dd246b66d7988a870962aeefc7a97e1212e7d264b9bb5; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:32:00.585Z.