GAA19CA403 · Md Helicopter 369 E
Md Helicopter 369 E · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Summerville Airport (DYB) to Summerville Airport (DYB)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA403
- 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
Md Helicopter 369 E
- Aircraft type
- MD Helicopters 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
- N500SC
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Summerville Airport (DYB), Summerville, SCTo Summerville Airport (DYB), Summerville, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 30 years (built 1989)
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, seated in the left seat, reported that he taxied and landed the helicopter on a taxiway after completing a mission. After landing, the copilot, seated in the right seat, disembarked with the passenger to request fuel from the fixed-base operator. The copilot returned to the helicopter without boarding and instructed the pilot to reposition the helicopter to the airport's refueling station because the fuel truck was inoperative. Once the copilot was clear of the helicopter, the pilot brought the helicopter to a hover, but the helicopter began to spin clockwise. He then applied left pedal, but the helicopter continued to spin and climbed about 7 ft above ground level. The pilot stated that, after two revolutions, he realized that the right-seat, left antitorque pedal was "chocked" and added that he was not aware that the copilot had "chocked" the pedals. He immediately initiated an autorotation, but the helicopter's tail rotor and main rotor blades struck the ground. The copilot reported that, after exiting the cockpit, while the pilot had positive control of the flight controls, he chocked the pedals on the right side by removing the left antitorque pedal, rotating it 180°, and reinstalling it, which prevented full travel of the left antitorque pedal on both sides of the cockpit. He added that he did not tell the pilot he had chocked the pedals and that he did not know why he chocked the pedals. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main and tail rotor systems and tailboom. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The copilot’s disabling of the flight controls of an operating helicopter without telling the pilot on the controls, which resulted in a subsequent loss of control and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA403
- Event ID
- 20190711X43717
- Case number
- GAA19CA403
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: 2630172533784ac3613953f75832172be5ef9776d8c6daf095b30dbcfa5860cc; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:24:01.157Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure, destination. DYB is Summerville Airport at Summerville, SC; 'Summersville' is a misspelling. DYB is Summerville Airport at Summerville, SC; 'Summersville' is a misspelling.