Western Helicopters Hughes Helicopters Inc 369 E accident
Hughes Helicopters Inc 369 E · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL) to Wrightwood, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA117
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 Helicopters Inc 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
- N618SG
- Operator
- Western Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL), Riverside, CATo Wrightwood, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1982)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter pilot selected a landing site on a ridge above 8,000 ft mean sea level and initiated an approach.
The helicopter descended below effective translational lift airspeed, and the pilot turned the nose of the helicopter to the right. The helicopter developed a rapid right yaw, and he applied full left pedal to arrest the yaw and forward cyclic to fly out of the condition, but the main rotor blades struck the ground. The helicopter came to rest on its left side, and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, the tailboom and both rotor systems.
The pilot reported that the maximum gross weight of the helicopter was 3,000 pounds, and the weight of the helicopter at the time of the accident was 2,700 pounds.
According to the recommendation section of the National Transportation Safety Board pilot's aircraft accident report, the pilot reported that the accident could have been prevented if the helicopter wasn't so heavy. Additionally, he noted that he should have selected a better landing area with the landing direction into the wind.
Per the Federal Aviation Administration Helicopter Flying Handbook pg. 11-20, "Loss of Tail Rotor Effectiveness [LTE]," when operating at high altitudes and high gross weights, especially while hovering, the tail rotor thrust may not be sufficient to maintain directional control, and LTE can occur. In this case, the hovering ceiling is limited by tail rotor thrust and not necessarily power available.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s high altitude, high gross weight landing with insufficient tail rotor thrust resulting in a loss of tail rotor effectiveness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA117
- Event ID
- 20180201X35955
- Case number
- GAA18CA117
- 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: 4d084652cea1acda5bfa32f7b4a4e3177999e161ac2b70d45bc1abaf6e1a98ab; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:24:58.043Z.