GAA18CA159 · Hughes 269 A
Skypro Industries Hughes 269 A · Accident: loss of control in flight during autorotation
From Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG) to Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA159
- 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 269 A
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 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
- N9020M
- Operator
- Skypro Industries
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG), Jacksonville, FLTo Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG), Jacksonville, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1964)
- 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 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 entered a practice autorotation and intended to terminate the maneuver to a hover. During the flare phase of the maneuver, he allowed the rotor rpm to decay. He increased collective and subsequently added power with throttle. The nose of the helicopter yawed to the right and simultaneously the fuselage rolled to the left. He applied left pedal, but the left skid struck rising terrain and the helicopter entered dynamic rollover.
The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor drive system and the tail rotor drive system.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain rotor rpm during a practice autorotation, which resulted in ground contact and a dynamic rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA159
- Event ID
- 20180312X11452
- Case number
- GAA18CA159
- 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: 634b06020adf0c374b10c7ddc427750b0a79360a751cacf7da387d440f386aa9; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:37:12.460Z.