FTW97LA366 · Robinson R22 BETA
Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH) to Ust-Tsylma Airport (UTS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA366
- 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 R22 BETA
- 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
- N8316W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Houston, TXTo Ust-Tsylma Airport (UTS)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was making a downwind approach to runway 36, when he lost directional control of the helicopter. During the approach, he realized he 'was coming in (too) fast,' and continued down the runway. At about '5 feet from the ground' and approximately 500 feet from the departure end of the runway, he applied aft cyclic, 'pulled collective and add[ed] left pedal.' The helicopter began to spin to the right and drift to the east. The student applied 'left pedal;' however, the spin did not stop. The helicopter descended, and the 'right skid' impacted the ground. Subsequently, the helicopter 'rolled over to the right.' Before the pilot had started his final approach to land, he crossed the runway at mid-field at about 800 feet to check the windsock, and he 'thought that the wind was a little bit strong from North West;' however, a flight instructor who witnessed the accident, reported that the wind was out of the south. Density altitude was 1,767 feet.
Probable cause
failure of the student pilot to maintain directional control of the helicopter during a flare to landing. Factors relating to the accident were: the student pilot's misinterpretation of the wind direction, his selection of the wrong runway, and the resultant tailwind during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA366
- Event ID
- 20001208X08858
- Case number
- FTW97LA366
- 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: ee07fae22904bc3ffac5b60065b547f48144d6e6bc3bc72900a14aa4419bcc59; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:08:10.054Z.