ERA18LA192 · Schweizer 269D CONFIG A
Schweizer 269D CONFIG A · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness on approach
From Martin State Airport (MTN) to Shoestring Aviation Airfield (0P2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA192
- 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
Schweizer 269D CONFIG A
- 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
- N411HU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Martin State Airport (MTN), Baltimore, MDTo Shoestring Aviation Airfield (0P2), Stewartstown, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Approach
- 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 tail rotor effectiveness
- 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 pilot reported that he made an uneventful approach into the 8-to-10 knot wind nearly directly down the runway. While operating the helicopter out of ground effect about 15 to 20 ft above ground level and about 10 to 20 knots, he began to apply left antitorque pedal to start to hover. With wind from the right, the helicopter then started turning clockwise; he applied left antitorque pedal, which did not stop the rotation, and the helicopter completed about 12 turns before impacting the ground. The passenger recalled the helicopter spinning clockwise and coming to rest on its left side. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, horizontal stabilizer, and rotor blades. The pilot did not recall reducing throttle or lowering collective during the accident sequence. Postaccident examination of the tail rotor flight control and drive system revealed no evidence of preimpact failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. Although the tail rotor control cable tension was about 2 lbs, or about 3%, less than the helicopter manufacturer’s specifications, that discrepancy would not affect operation of the tail rotor. Given this information, it is likely that the pilot was unable to stop the yaw and lost control of the helicopter due to a loss of tail rotor effectiveness.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain yaw control while transitioning to an out of ground effect hover due to a loss of tail rotor effectiveness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA192
- Event ID
- 20180716X22246
- Case number
- ERA18LA192
- 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: 1e5623de27034d457ab407cdbd47346843c65d8604b6e5ee30a8622cd8fe41b4; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:52:30.317Z.