CEN13FA075 · Hughes 369 D
Brim Equipment Leasing Hughes 369 D · Accident: external load event (Rotorcraft) during autorotation
From Childress, TX to Childress, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA075
- 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
Hughes 369 D
- 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
- N28MP
- Operator
- Brim Equipment Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Childress, TXTo Childress, TX
- 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
- Autorotation
- 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
- External load event (Rotorcraft)
- 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 systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was in a hover about 120-150 feet above the ground while a utility worker performing a long-line operation worked on a transmission tower. After the loss of power, the helicopter spun and descended during which the worker was pulled off the tower by the attached long line. The pilot performed an autorotation that resulted in a hard landing. The pilot sustained serious injuries and the worker sustained fatal injuries.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed no usable fuel on board, and fuel quantities between the fuel tank and engine were consistent with fuel exhaustion. The examination revealed that the electrical wire to the start pump was not secured, which allowed for the possibility of it interfering with the fuel quantity transmitter float mechanism, thus providing erroneous cockpit fuel quantity indications to the pilot. The examination also revealed that the low fuel quantity annunciator was inoperative due to separation of the fuel quantity transmitter's low-level fuel whisker.
Recent maintenance of the helicopter's fuel system by the operator's maintenance personnel included the replacement of the start pump and testing of the low-level fuel light by electrically grounding the top of the fuel quantity transmitter using safety wire. A vacuum check of the fuel system was not performed after the fuel system had been opened. The method for testing the low-level fuel light and the lack of a vacuum check were not in accordance with the maintenance manual and the helicopter manufacturer's service bulletin relating to the start pump installation. Postaccident examination of the helicopter also revealed a nonstandard installation of an engine mounted fuel filter petcock drain valve.
No written company procedures and/or fueling records were available that required pilots to track fuel loading and time-based fuel consumption in order to determine time remaining for flights and their termination. The pilot stated that he would have the helicopter refueled when the fuel gauge indicated about 100 lbs. However, had the operator and/or pilot calculated the flight time remaining based on known fuel quantities that were independent of fuel gauge indications, then any fuel gauge inaccuracies would be have become apparent.
Probable cause
The improper maintenance of the helicopter fuel system that resulted in erroneous fuel gauge indications and the pilot’s inadequate fuel management, both of which resulted in fuel exhaustion during a long-line hover. Also causal was the lack of company procedures to ensure adequate maintenance and fuel planning.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA075
- Event ID
- 20121128X12341
- Case number
- CEN13FA075
- 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: fb4a090835556b6099fcdbf480d0a7d8b6c20a7766ea38adbf5f7319c84e927b; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:49:25.458Z.