WPR13LA137 · Hughes 369HS
Jerrys Helicopter Service Hughes 369HS · Accident: inflight upset while maneuvering
From Latangai Island, PO to Latangai Island, PO
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA137
- 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 369HS
- 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
- N471M
- Operator
- Jerrys Helicopter Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Latangai Island, POTo Latangai Island, PO
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1974)
- 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 · hover
- 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
- Inflight upset
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, as he was flying toward a school of fish, he observed a nearby fishing vessel moving in the same general direction. He flew over the vessel then continued toward a fish aggregating device (FAD), which is a floating object designed and strategically placed to attract fish; it was located about 0.7 mile away from the vessel. As the pilot approached the FAD, he circled twice and then descended the helicopter into a low hover over the FAD. The helicopter was positioned into the wind, and the vessel was approaching the helicopter from behind. With the helicopter still in a low hover, the fish spotter reached out of the helicopter to attach a radio buoy to the FAD. Shortly after, the helicopter was struck from behind by the vessel. The helicopter subsequently plunged into the ocean.
The fish master, who was at the controls of the vessel, reported that he observed the helicopter circle twice before it appeared to fly out of the area. He was slowing the vessel when it was about 500 meters (0.3 mile) from the FAD when he observed the helicopter in front of the vessel. The captain of the vessel reported that he was on the vessel's helicopter deck when he noticed the helicopter circle twice and then descend to a hover. He stated that he was unsure what the helicopter was doing until he saw the fish spotter reach for the FAD. At this time, he felt the fish master reverse the vessel; however, it still impacted the helicopter's tail.
The Federal Aviation Administration Model Civil Aviation Regulations, Version 2.7, Part 11 states, "Each operator shall conduct operations so as not to endanger persons or property on the surface nor aircraft in flight." The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, United States Coast Guard Navigation Rules state, "every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing...as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision." Both the pilot and the fish master of the vessel should have been adequately monitoring their environment and their failure to do so resulted in a collision.
Probable cause
The failure of both the pilot and the fish master of the vessel to adequately monitor their environment, which resulted in a collision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA137
- Event ID
- 20130305X21219
- Case number
- WPR13LA137
- 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: f096ee781e777665120509b4d2f928d7774a32a05da6526a2fb10a4b2ffae6b9; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:53:48.935Z.