CEN16FA304 · Schweizer 269C 1
Gulf Coast Helicopters Schweizer 269C 1 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From L38 · Gonzales, LA to Harry P Williams Memorial Airport (PTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16FA304
- 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
Schweizer 269C 1
- 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
- N1549W
- Operator
- Gulf Coast Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L38 · Gonzales, LATo Harry P Williams Memorial Airport (PTN), Patterson, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2005)
- 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 · 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was completing a scheduled biweekly patrol of a series of intersecting pipelines. When the helicopter failed to arrive as scheduled, a search was initiated. The helicopter was located partially submerged in a remote, thickly wooded cypress swamp. The damage to the helicopter and to surrounding trees indicated that the helicopter was in a near-vertical descent with a nose-down attitude at impact.
Examination of the helicopter and engine revealed no evidence of preimpact discrepancies or anomalies, and damage to the main rotor blades was consistent with the engine producing power at impact. Review of weather information revealed that there was a large thunderstorm complex in the area, but it did not extend over the accident site. The closest weather station, located about 18 miles from the accident site, was reporting visual flight rules to marginal flight rules conditions due to light rain and a broken-to-overcast cloud layer. Due to an overcast layer of high cirriform clouds over the accident site, it was not possible to determine if any low clouds were in the immediate vicinity of the accident site. The circumstances of the accident are consistent with a loss of control by the pilot. The reason for the pilot's loss of helicopter control could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of helicopter control for reasons that could not be determined based on available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16FA304
- Event ID
- 20160804X45514
- Case number
- CEN16FA304
- 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: 071f922254dca68528d401df3d900a87eb1e541c77fc4848304435da80ea680e; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:57:58.470Z.