CEN11LA606 · Boeing A75N1(PT17)
Boeing A75N1(PT17) and Helibatics Schweizer HUGHES 269C · Accident while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA606
- 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
- 1 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Boeing A75N1(PT17)
- Aircraft type
- Boeing A75
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N49739
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Selfridge Air National Guard Base Airport (MTC), Mt. Clemens, MITo Selfridge Air National Guard Base Airport (MTC), Mt. Clemens, MI
- 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 · 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
- 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
- None
Aircraft 2 · Schweizer HUGHES 269C
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 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
- N7505B
- Operator
- Helibatics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Selfridge Air National Guard Base Airport (MTC), Mt. Clemens, MITo Selfridge Air National Guard Base Airport (MTC), Mt. Clemens, MI
- 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 · 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
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident occurred during an air show routine as a wing walker attempted an aerial transfer from an airplane to a helicopter. The pilots of both aircraft reported that the aerial transfer was planned to occur on the third pass along the air show line. The initial passes went according to plan. However, on the third pass, the wing walker attempted to grab the helicopter skid before the two aircraft reached the briefed transfer point. The helicopter pilot stated that the wing walker released his hold on the airplane handle and lunged with both hands for the helicopter skid before the aircraft were in position. He reported that the wing walker attempted to go back to the airplane, but was unable to grab on to anything. The wing walker subsequently fell, impacting a grass area within the air show performance area. Both aircraft involved landed safely after the accident, without damage to either aircraft. The wing walker sustained fatal injuries.
Probable cause
The wing walker’s decision to release his grip of the airplane during an attempted aerial transfer from airplane to helicopter before both aircraft achieved the proper relative positioning for the transfer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA606
- Event ID
- 20110830X71207
- Case number
- CEN11LA606
- 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, coordinates, damage. 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: db3d36fe231eb3898547957634dc7363735fec0f052b9d6292228356e5ca0649; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:06:23.722Z.