Alaska Chopper Robinson R22 accident
Robinson R22 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From 3Z5 · AK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA068
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- 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
- N1929T
- Operator
- Alaska Chopper
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3Z5 · AKTo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › Rotor RPM, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated commercial helicopter pilot reported that during a northerly departure from atop a 4,200 feet msl mountain, the rotor rpm dropped, and the low rotor warning horn sounded. He said that in an attempt to regain rotor rpm and arrest the decent, he rolled the throttle to the high position, increased collective pitch, and lowered the nose to gain airspeed. He said that the rotor rpm continued to decay, the helicopter impacted uneven terrain, and rolled over. The pilot stated: 'I just got into a downdraft on takeoff.' He added that there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the helicopter. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the rotor system, and fuselage.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain rotor RPM during takeoff. Factors associated with the accident were a downdraft, and uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA068
- Event ID
- 20001212X18908
- Case number
- ANC99LA068
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-06-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 20da63b60cf49079b9779f650f8dd9754dfd404620aaf27468871ef029f96c0e; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:56:23.794Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N1929T; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.