GAA18CA060 · Hughes 300 C
Hughes 300 C · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Twin County Airport (HLX) to Woodlawn, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA060
- 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 300 C
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 300
- 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
- N9685F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Twin County Airport (HLX), GALAX HILLSVILLE, VATo Woodlawn, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1972)
- 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
- Landing
- 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 helicopter pilot reported that he was landing on a pad in a confined area. He added that, as he approached the landing pad, he slowed the helicopter to transition to a hover. The main rotor rpm began to drop, and he applied full throttle, but the rpm continued to decline. The helicopter was unable to maintain altitude and slowly settled into the trees on the hillside about 20 ft short of the landing pad. Subsequently, the helicopter struck the trees and rolled onto its right side.
The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and main rotor system.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot reported that, after the accident, he noticed there was a significant right quartering tailwind, which required the application of more left pedal than anticipated. He further explained that the increased application of antitorque pedal lessened the available power to maintain the main rotor rpm. He concluded that the approach could have been completed safely with a steeper and faster approach to better manage engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inappropriate descent profile during landing with a quartering gusting tailwind, which resulted in a loss of main rotor rpm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA060
- Event ID
- 20171122X32450
- Case number
- GAA18CA060
- 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: e3cd4c8a4ae3a6ee150043cbeb1e8d629954c5df6ee15290ad2f706994f1e9f4; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:01:29.702Z.