ERA13LA057 · Hughes 369D
Haverfield International Hughes 369D · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM) to Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA057
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N369AW
- Operator
- Haverfield International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM), Horseheads, NYTo Elmira Corning Regional Airport (ELM), Horseheads, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was flying west down a hill over power lines that the pilot was inspecting when it struck the top of the power lines that were perpendicular to its flightpath. The tail rotor assembly separated, and the helicopter impacted the ground and came to rest inverted. Postaccident examination of the helicopter did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation; however, most of the wreckage sustained extensive thermal- and impact-related damage.
The pilot was hired about 3 weeks before the accident. He had no prior power line patrol experience, but he had completed a wire strike avoidance training module about 2 weeks before the accident. The accident occurred during the pilot's second work day of flying power line observation flights. After the accident, the operator instituted a policy requiring that all newly hired pilots obtain 100 flight hours of power line patrol-related flight experience with company crewmembers before being assigned an operation that would require flying with noncompany observers.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate altitude while conducting a power line aerial observation flight, which resulted in an in-flight collision with wires. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s lack of total experience in the type of operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA057
- Event ID
- 20121115X43423
- Case number
- ERA13LA057
- 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: fa22f0847c6d277146990bd1ff597c8aa1880b611cd7213bd37fd67603ef3ae6; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:48:12.311Z.