CEN15LA341 · Hughes 269B
Hughes 269B · Accident: low altitude operation/event en route
From Geneseo, IL (private airstrip) to Geneseo, IL (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA341
- 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 269B
- 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
- N9427F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Geneseo, IL (private airstrip)To Geneseo, IL (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1963)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a local, personal flight when the helicopter collided with a power line during cruise flight. A witness reported seeing the helicopter flying about 20 ft above the ground shortly before the accident. Another witness reported hearing the helicopter approach his position then hearing a loud "pop" and seeing a broken power line pass over him. The helicopter crashed in a nearby field and was destroyed by fire. The pilot sustained serious injuries and did not recall the accident flight.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter did not reveal any evidence of preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Based on the available information, the pilot was intentionally flying the helicopter at a low altitude toward the southwest when it collided with the power line. Weather conditions were good at the time of the accident, and the sun was about 34° above the horizon and to the west-southwest. Although the location of the sun relative to the power line may have hindered the pilot's ability to see and avoid the power line, it was the pilot's improper decision to operate the helicopter at a low altitude that resulted in the collision with the power line.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to intentionally fly the helicopter at a low altitude and his subsequent failure to maintain clearance from a power line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA341
- Event ID
- 20150806X44006
- Case number
- CEN15LA341
- 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: ffea75a8964fd03de954111059217099d72cc79e2c79b221ac9031d9e4c70d00; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:38:04.700Z.