CEN19FA020 · Hughes 369 D
Air2 Hughes 369 D · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From McDougal, AR to McDougal, AR
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA020
- 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
- 1 · 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 369 D
- 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
- N5187S
- Operator
- Air2
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McDougal, ARTo McDougal, AR
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and two crewmembers of the helicopter were performing external load operations to decommission power line structures. The crew reported that, during the first flight after their lunch break, the pilot was hovering the helicopter next to the power line structure when they heard a "loud boom" and "metallic crunch" and the crews' short haul lines were released from the helicopter. The helicopter descended and impacted the ground beneath the structure, fatally injuring the pilot, while the two crewmembers sustained minor injuries.
A postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The power line structure displayed an indentation consistent with impact with the top of the new steel utility pole. There was also a gouge mark to the side of the upper cap plate of the structure, consistent in shape with the indentation mark to the pole. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot failed to maintain clearance from the power line structure while hovering, resulting in contact with the structure.
One lineman stated that before the impact, the pilot did not seem calm and hesitated in responding to the lineman's communications. He said that the helicopter was moving around a lot when he was attaching to the pole, and he could see the helicopter shadow and saw the tail "darting around." Weather data at the time of the accident indicated the winds were 12 knots gusting to 19-25 knots from the southwest with likely unstable air from the surface up to an altitude of 400-500 ft. It is likely the pilot had difficulty maintaining the helicopter's clearance from the utility pole due to the gusty wind conditions.
Toxicology testing performed on the pilot revealed diphenhydramine and tramadol in the pilot's blood and urine. Because both drugs undergo postmortem redistribution, the investigation could not determine whether the pilot was impaired by either drug.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the helicopter's clearance from the powerline structure while hovering in gusty wind conditions, which resulted in an inadvertent collision with the structure and an uncontrolled descent into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA020
- Event ID
- 20181102X60245
- Case number
- CEN19FA020
- 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, coordinates. 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: 3ad3e76dc82b53d519b8f20606779a98919524eb8b10eb3e35a37f5181bbbf2b; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:50:19.005Z.