WPR09LA226 · MD Helicopter 369FF
Summit Helicopter MD Helicopter 369FF · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Santa Clarita, CA to Santa Clarita, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA226
- 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
MD Helicopter 369FF
- Aircraft type
- MD Helicopters 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
- N67FF
- Operator
- Summit Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Clarita, CATo Santa Clarita, CA
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- Defining eventThe 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was maneuvering the helicopter about 10 feet above a reservoir in an attempt to use its rotor wash to propel an object to the shore. During this maneuver, the helicopter's long-line and attached grappling hook were submerged in the water. With the helicopter moving at low speed about 10 feet from the shoreline, the grappling hook became temporarily ensnared on an underwater obstruction and the helicopter made a rapid and violent turn. The pilot initiated emergency procedures and maneuvered the helicopter toward the shore. It touched down on uneven terrain with the left skid on dry land and the right skid in the water. Examination of the helicopter revealed that there was a torsional fracture and separation of the tail rotor drive shaft as a result of the tail rotor blades contacting the water. No anomalies with the main rotor controls were found.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the water while maneuvering at low altitude as a result of the helicopter's grappling hook temporarily becoming ensnared with an underwater obstruction.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA226
- Event ID
- 20090504X52158
- Case number
- WPR09LA226
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 6e86c0413a22d957da897b48e18702cfbc6324e661013f68fd0f164e6f6601d1; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:00:56.230Z.