WPR15LA245 · Schweizer 269C
Schweizer 269C · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during autorotation
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA245
- 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
Schweizer 269C
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 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
- N17YS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NVTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1992)
- 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that, during the instructional flight in the helicopter, he was demonstrating entry procedures for an autorotation with the student pilot following along on the flight controls. The instructor smoothly lowered the collective, applied right pedal, and pulled aft on the cyclic to enter the autorotation. Immediately after entering the maneuver, he heard a change in engine noise and saw that the engine rpm gauge indicated zero. The instructor attempted to restart the engine by pressing the start button several times; however, the starter did not engage. The instructor continued the autorotative descent to the ground and landed hard.
A postaccident engine examination revealed that the battery's positive lead was separated from the battery terminal, and the lead exhibited corrosion. When the positive lead was reattached to the battery, and the engine started and operated normally. The reason for the loss of engine power during the autorotation could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during a practice autorotation for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA245
- Event ID
- 20150818X63732
- Case number
- WPR15LA245
- 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: 8e73dc3c2de1f3aea470540483e8c570a280572fc42a6f6cd02536cc28a6f3e7; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:41:33.637Z.