SEA97LA115 · Robinson R22B
Robinson R22B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA115
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Robinson R22B
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R22
- 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
- N2328W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Loss of tail rotor effectiveness › Encountered
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was on a checkride for a private pilot certificate with an FAA operations inspector acting as a check pilot. The check pilot stated that he had asked the student to demonstrate a hovering autorotation. Their procedures were discussed before starting the maneuver. The check pilot noted that the student stated that on the count of three, he would start the maneuver by rolling the throttle off first. The check pilot stated that as he was adjusting himself on the seat, at the count of one, the applicant rolled the throttle partially off, induced right pedal as hard as he could and pulled on the collective as quickly as he could. The check pilot noted that during the maneuver, the engine returned to full power because of the corrolator. The helicopter then climbed to approximately 15 feet and started to spin. The check pilot said that by then, he was on the controls and was asking the applicant to let go. He stated that the student pilot froze on the controls during the maneuver and refused to let go. After approximately eight or nine spins, he was unable to maintain control of the helicopter, with the applicant still at the controls at the time of the crash.
Probable cause
improper handling of the helicopter by the student pilot/applicant, during a hover autorotation, which resulted in loss of tail rotor effectiveness. The check pilot's inadequate remedial action was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA115
- Event ID
- 20001208X08028
- Case number
- SEA97LA115
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 493766119ec65307256b259db6e6fb8775e3c3da8c015a266a7af97306bd8bf7; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:41:56.989Z.