8 Aug 2011: ROBINSON HELICOPTER R22 BETA — Inland Helicopters, Inc.

8 Aug 2011: ROBINSON HELICOPTER R22 BETA (N8332T) — Inland Helicopters, Inc.

No fatalities • Deer Park, WA, United States

Probable cause

The student pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter and his delay in relinquishing control to the flight instructor, which resulted in the instructor’s delayed remedial actions and subsequent hard landing.

— NTSB Determination

Accident narrative

On August 8, 2011, approximately 1400 Pacific daylight time, a Robinson Helicopter R22 Beta, N8332T, sustained substantial damage during a hard landing following a loss of control while hovering near Deer Park, Washington. The flight instructor and his student were not injured. Inland Helicopters, Inc., Spokane, Washington, was operating the helicopter under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the instructional flight, which had originated about 20 minutes before the accident. A flight plan had not been filed.

The flight instructor reported that this was the second training flight for the student. The student was practicing hovering and allowed the helicopter to drift right. The student also began to lower the collective. The flight instructor announced repeatedly that he was taking the flight controls, but the student did not relinquish the controls. Control of the helicopter was momentarily lost, and it landed hard. The skids were spread, the firewall and fuselage were wrinkled, and the fuel tank's mounting straps were compromised.

The student said that while hovering the helicopter began turning to the right so he tried to correct with left pedal. The student stated that he "overdid it with the pedal" and they spun to the left. He reported that they did "several 360's banking down and the left skid hit the ground," after which the instructor regained control and landed the helicopter hard in a grass field.

Contributing factors

  • cause Performance/control parameters — Not attained/maintained
  • cause Instructor/check pilot
  • cause Student pilot

Conditions

Weather
VMC, wind 220/07kt, 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.