13 Mar 2010: ROBINSON HELICOPTER R22 BETA — Rotor Envy Helicopters

13 Mar 2010: ROBINSON HELICOPTER R22 BETA — Rotor Envy Helicopters

No fatalities • Houston, TX, United States

Probable cause

The student pilot's loss of directional control during takeoff, resulting in a dynamic rollover of the helicopter.

— NTSB Determination

Accident narrative

The student helicopter pilot was preparing for his fourth scheduled solo flight, intending to depart on a local flight. The student reported that as he started to raise the helicopter’s collective, the helicopter started to slide to the right. He added that he stopped moving the collective and applied left cyclic, and the helicopter stopped moving. He then continued to raise the collective to begin his hover. The helicopter rolled-over to the right, and impacted the ground. The flight instructor who was watching the student, reported that he saw the helicopter move to the right about a foot, stop, and then as the helicopter started to lift, it “instantaneously, rolled to the right and struck the ground." After the accident, both the instructor and student stated that it appeared the helicopter’s skid may have gotten caught in a crack on the ramp’s cement surface.

Contributing factors

  • cause Student pilot
  • Contributed to outcome

Conditions

Weather
VMC, wind 330/05kt, vis 10sm

Loading the flight search…

What you can do on Flight Finder

  • Search flights between any two airports with live fares.
  • By aircraft — pick a plane model (e.g. Boeing 787, Airbus A350) and see every route it flies from your origin.
  • Route map — click any airport worldwide to explore its destinations, or draw a radius to find nearby airports.
  • Global aviation safety — aviation accident database, 5,200+ records since 1980, with map and rankings by aircraft and operator.
  • NTSB safety feed — recent U.S. aviation accidents and incidents from the official NTSB CAROL database, updated daily.

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.