CEN13LA461 · Hughes 369D
Haverfield Aviation Hughes 369D · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Ackerly, TX (no airport) to Ackerly, TX (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA461
- 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
- N8688F
- Operator
- Haverfield Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ackerly, TX (no airport)To Ackerly, TX (no airport)
- 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
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was being used to hoist linemen onto power transmission towers. The helicopter was equipped with a 100-foot external cargo long-line. Shortly after departure, as the helicopter was climbing toward the transmission tower, the long-line collided with a shield wire suspended between transmission towers. The operator reported that the long-line severed about 5 feet above the linemen. The two linemen, who were being hoisted on the long-line, were fatally injured after falling about 200 feet to the ground after the collision. The pilot returned to the landing zone and made an uneventful landing. The operator did not report any malfunction or failures with the helicopter that would have prevented normal operation. The pilot stated that the shield wire installed on the tower had not been identified or discussed during the preflight briefing. He reported that the clear sky condition and the morning light made the shield wire impossible to see from the ground. Additionally, he stated that it was uncommon for shield wire to be installed on the upper tower structures before the lower line work had been completed.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to identify and maintain adequate clearance from a shield wire that was suspended between power transmission line towers.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA461
- Event ID
- 20130805X31941
- Case number
- CEN13LA461
- 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: 2981579c1b8fb0d20830ede16186a813cc8fafea2c473191e87996d92f6b59ad; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:01:53.893Z.