CEN23LA301 · Schweizer 269C-1
US Aviation Training Solutions Schweizer 269C-1 · Accident: loss of control on ground while standing
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA301
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-1
- 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
- N21409
- Operator
- US Aviation Training Solutions
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2009)
- 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
- Standing
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After completion of a local solo flight, the student pilot was conducting the engine cooling shutdown procedure on the dry ramp when the helicopter suddenly became airborne, climbed about 30ft, and entered a nose down attitude impacting the ground. The helicopter came to rest upright, and the pilot was able to egress from the helicopter without further incident. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor system, the tail boom, and the tail rotor system. The student pilot reported that he had engaged both the cyclic and collective friction prior to completing other post flight activities. Postaccident examination of the helicopter showed the collective friction to not be fully engaged. The friction was found at an approximate 90-degree angle to the collective lever, which corresponds to the friction not being fully engaged. The helicopter pilot’s flight manual states that the collective friction is to be on for the engine cooling shutdown procedure. No preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal flight operation were reported.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain helicopter control while on the ground when his attention was diverted for post flight activities.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA301
- Event ID
- 20230712192618
- Case number
- CEN23LA301
- 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: 1d130368d6e60d8ed125154efbb485747b0fd8e4b854079dc3c59748bd323db7; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:51:22.172Z.