ERA26LA122 · Hughes 269A UNDESIGNAT
Tactical Turtle Hughes 269A UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Gettysburg Regional Airport (W05)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA26LA122
- 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
Hughes 269A UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Hughes 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
- N1020S
- Operator
- Tactical Turtle
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Gettysburg Regional Airport (W05), Gettysburg, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot and the flight instructor performed a preflight inspection of the helicopter and then moved it from the hangar onto an area of soft, muddy ground outside. They pushed the helicopter as far away from the hangar as they could due to the soft ground, about 25 to 30 ft. The student pilot described that where the helicopter was positioned, it was “leaning back” with the aft portion of both skids several inches deep in the mud. During the subsequent takeoff attempt, the student pilot noted that the helicopter required the application of additional engine power than he had observed during previous takeoffs before it became “light on the skids.” During a postaccident interview, he postulated that the helicopter might have been “stuck in the mud.” The flight instructor then felt that the helicopter’s tail might strike the ground, so he nudged the cyclic control forward. Immediately after, the helicopter began moving forward toward the hangar in a significantly nose low attitude.
Despite their subsequent control inputs, neither pilot was able to arrest the helicopter’s forward motion and it struck the hangar less than 2 seconds later and came to rest on its right side. The helicopter’s fuselage, tailboom, and main rotor blades were substantially damaged during the accident sequence. The flight instructor reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation, and FAA inspectors who examined the helicopter after the accident were unable to find evidence of a preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure of the flight controls that would have precluded normal operation. Based on this information, it is likely that the helicopter suddenly dislodged itself from the soft, muddy ground during the takeoff when the flight instructor applied nose down cyclic input, which resulted in an unexpected, rapid forward movement and collision with the hangar. Had the flight instructor recognized the abnormal amount of engine power being applied by the student and discontinued the takeoff attempt, it is likely that the accident could have been avoided.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s failure to identify the excess power required to lift off from soft and muddy ground, which resulted in a loss of control and subsequent collision with a hangar during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA26LA122
- Event ID
- 20260223202481
- Case number
- ERA26LA122
- 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, 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: 1179f04bcf75b22e5d18bdbf062864c4e9a31a438b0c590338939abb6d340151; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:48:36.226Z.