ERA17LA209 · Hughes 369 E
Haverfield International Hughes 369 E · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Dennis, WV to Dennis, WV
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA209
- 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 369 E
- 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
- N765KV
- Operator
- Haverfield International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dennis, WVTo Dennis, WV
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1980)
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting long line operations in the helicopter, and he was flying it in an aft or left attitude with a higher nose-up attitude than normal flight to compensate for the load's drag. He then transitioned the helicopter to a 100-ft hover over a landing zone, and shortly thereafter, the helicopter experienced a total loss of engine power. Subsequently, the pilot initiated an autorotation, and during the landing, a main rotor blade contacted and severed the tailboom.
Postaccident wreckage examination, which included a successful test-run of the engine, did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. However, when the helicopter was positioned nose up with the remaining fuel onboard (about 7 gallons in each tank), the low fuel light illuminated. The two fuel tanks were connected by an interconnect passage, and each tank had an internal baffle. The fuel pickup was located in the right front portion of the left fuel tank. Given that the low fuel light illuminated when the helicopter was positioned nose up, it is likely that the helicopter's nose-up attitude during the long line operation led to the unporting of the remaining fuel, which resulted in fuel starvation.
The operator's risk assessment form required that pilots land the helicopter with at least about 14.7 gallons of fuel remaining for long line operations. After the accident, the operator amended its risk assessment form to require the same fuel requirement as side pull operations (about 37 gallons of fuel remaining upon landing) for long line operations.
Probable cause
The unporting of fuel due to the helicopter's nose-up attitude during long line operations, which resulted in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA209
- Event ID
- 20170623X50152
- Case number
- ERA17LA209
- 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: 1b77b47ac61d1a72cd0aba22cebfd7012ddaabce8efca0b9c1039435dcb7610d; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:26:53.728Z.