CHI99LA191 · Beech B19
Beech B19 and Robinson R-22 BETA · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA191
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Beech B19
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 19
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N282L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI), Springfield, ILTo K04
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Robinson R-22 BETA
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R-22
- 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
- N2341J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quincy, ILTo K04
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Visual separation, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual separation, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane pilot said that he was in the traffic pattern, turning from base leg to final, when he heard a noise and felt something. The pilot said that he looked to his left and saw a small helicopter flying below him at his 10 o'clock position. He then noticed that the airplane's left aileron was damaged. The pilot said that his airplane and the helicopter appeared to both be under control. The helicopter pilot said that he was coming around for an approach pattern. He had heard the pilot of the airplane over the radio and thought that the airplane was already on the ground. The helicopter pilot said that when he was on final for the runway he felt a bump in the airframe. Thinking he had struck a bird, the pilot rapidly descended and landed. The helicopter pilot said that he never saw the airplane. Both the airplane and the helicopter landed without further incident. Examinations of the airplane and the helicopter revealed no anomalies to either aircraft.
Probable cause
the airplane pilot's and the helicopter pilot's failure to maintain visual clearance from each other while in the traffic pattern.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA191
- Event ID
- 20001212X18950
- Case number
- CHI99LA191
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 22aa232c0c57c51c3357b234372571d10aa3a8d6144e0928f0c0aa34db06e8f9; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:47:24.363Z.