CEN18LA334 · Schweizer 269C
Schweizer 269C · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
From McLeod, ND to Hector International Airport (FAR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA334
- 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 269C
- 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
- N3625Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McLeod, NDTo Hector International Airport (FAR), Fargo, ND
- Aircraft age
- About 33 years (built 1985)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
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 pilot was conducting a personal flight when he heard a loud "snap" that was followed by a significant yaw of the helicopter during cruise flight. He stated that the throttle still controlled engine speed, but the main rotor speed did not respond to throttle changes. He immediately entered an autorotation and landed the helicopter level on its skids in a nearby wheat field. The helicopter still had forward ground speed at touchdown, it pitched up briefly, and then slowly rolled onto its right side. The pilot moved the mixture control into the fuel cutoff position to shut down the engine after the accident. The helicopter caught fire a few minutes after the accident and was subsequently destroyed.
Postaccident examination revealed that the forward drive splines of the lower coupling drive shaft were missing and exhibited evidence of significant rotational damage. The pilot was unaware of the flight manual’s preflight checklist requirement to check the free-play and to verify the proper lubrication of the lower coupling drive shaft, nor had he ever completed those preflight inspection tasks during the 18 years that he had owned the helicopter. Had he completed an adequate preflight inspection of the helicopter, the pilot would have been aware of the lack of lubrication and/or excessive free-play of the lower coupling driveshaft and that maintenance was required before the helicopter could be flown safely.
A review of available maintenance documentation revealed that the helicopter was not in compliance with an airworthiness directive that required the disassembly of the lower coupling drive shaft components for a recurring inspection. The helicopter had exceeded the initial 25-hour time-in-service inspection requirement by about 44 hours when the accident occurred. The pilot, who was the sole owner and operator of the helicopter, was responsible for ensuring compliance with the airworthiness directive. The pilot’s non-compliance with the required inspection contributed to the failure of the lower coupling drive shaft.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to adequately inspect the lower coupling driveshaft during his preflight inspection and his non-compliance with an applicable airworthiness directive, which resulted in the failure of the forward drive splines of the lower coupling driveshaft during cruise flight. Co-causal to the accident was the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the helicopter during the autorotation landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA334
- Event ID
- 20180816X45342
- Case number
- CEN18LA334
- 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, cause areas. 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: dd4419a0f4a729f7680b9cad3ee42781bfcb53a856f907161797900764ff820f; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:06:20.694Z.