CHI98LA239 · Robinson R-44
Robinson R-44 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Tulsa, OK (private airstrip) to M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA239
- 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 R-44
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R-44
- 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
- N8329B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulsa, OK (private airstrip)To M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK), Branson, MO
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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 object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Flight into adverse weather, encountered
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and his passenger were enroute to their destination when they became aware that they were approaching a line of thunderstorms from behind. The pilot decided to make a precautionary landing due to the convective weather in the area and wait for the line of thunderstorms to move further from their route. During approach to the landing area, the aircraft struck a power line, approximately 35' above ground level (agl), and the pilot executed a run-on landing. The aircraft impacted the ground resulting in substantial damage to the landing skids, rotor blades, and tail boom. The pilot stated that he was aware of the thunderstorms from watching a television weather broadcast, but thought the line of storms had moved past his route of flight when he had made his departure. There were no Flight Service Station (FSS) or Direct User Access Terminal System (Duats) pilot briefings given for the aircraft in question. The pilot stated that there were no aircraft mechanical problems related to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot in command's inadequate preflight planning/preparation and weather evaluation that resulted in flight into adverse weather conditions. Factors to the accident were a preflight briefing service not being used and the transmission wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA239
- Event ID
- 20001211X10493
- Case number
- CHI98LA239
- 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: 131a3c15ea7e9367d5b69b1843a029c2a983f4ef2d3094422d8dba40b51a758b; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:47:44.020Z.