Hughes OH-6A N4191T

Summary

On 22 February 2025 at about 23:20 local time, a Hughes OH-6A registered N4191T was involved in an accident near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, United States. 2 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. No probable cause has been published yet; this accident is still under investigation.

Date

22 February 2025 at 23:20

Classification

Accident

Location

Santa Teresa, New Mexico, United States

Coordinates

31.8744, -106.6920

Aircraft

Hughes OH-6A

Registration

N4191T

Category

Helicopter

Year built

1968

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Instructional

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

WPR25LA101

Nobody was injured.

The NTSB has not published a probable cause for this record. The investigation is still open; a final report usually follows one to two years after the accident.

Nothing about the cause is stated here that is not in the source record.

Read the full NTSB narrative

On February 22, 2025, about 1620, a Hughes OH-6A, N4191T, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The flight instructor and pilot undergoing instruction were not injured. The helicopter was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. The flight instructor had just flown in the helicopter with its owner earlier in the day, and the flight was uneventful. The accident flight was intended to be refresher training for the pilot undergoing instruction, rather than a formal flight review. For about 30 minutes they performed a series of practice maneuvers and once complete the flight instructor took the flight controls and initiated a hover taxi from the end of runway 28 to the helicopter pad about 500 ft to the southwest. About midway through the taxi, they felt a shudder in the airframe and the helicopter immediately yawed to the right. The flight instructor moved the throttle to idle and proceeded to lower the collective. The yaw transitioned into a spin, and the helicopter struck the ground on the incline of a gravel pit. The helicopter came to rest upright on a southwest heading, with its tailboom severed just aft of the engine. The tailrotor assembly including the vertical and horizontal stabilizers were located about 100 ft behind the helicopter.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.