CEN14LA222 · Hughes 269A
Hughes 269A · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT) to Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA222
- 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
- 0 · 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 269A
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N90636
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT), Cleburne, TXTo Cleburne Regional Airport (CPT), Cleburne, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was air taxiing the helicopter with an instructor pilot on board. When the student pilot slowed to a hover taxi, the helicopter began bucking violently fore and aft. The helicopter descended and came to rest on its side. A postaccident examination of the wreckage and accident site revealed ground scars consistent with main and tail rotor blade strikes, which were consistent with the aft left skid and tail rotor contacting the ground while the helicopter was moving aft. A helicopter is customarily pitched with its tail low when the pilot performs a quick stop from an air taxi. Tail rotor drive shaft deformation was consistent with the tail rotor blade contacting the ground while being driven. No preimpact anomalies were detected that would have precluded normal operation of the helicopter. The evidence indicates that the student pilot allowed the tail rotor and aft skid to contact the ground as the helicopter slowed during the transition to hover taxi. The instructor did not anticipate the situation or intervene in a timely manner, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent and rollover.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain tail rotor clearance from terrain while transitioning to a hover taxi and the instructor pilot's inadequate remedial action to prevent the impending tail rotor contact.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA222
- Event ID
- 20140428X55049
- Case number
- CEN14LA222
- 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: d3032223a3e092d7d465773ca2be7180714cb19bc697e84319581fe1613304bd; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:32:49.664Z.