LAX00LA050 · Robinson R22 MARINER II R22 MARINE
Robinson R22 MARINER II R22 MARINE · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Susanville Municipal Airport (SVE) to Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA050
- 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 MARINER II R22 MARINE
- 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
- N7183Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Susanville Municipal Airport (SVE), Susanville, CATo Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NV
- 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 · hover
- 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 › Tail rotor/anti-torque control, not available
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Foreign object damage
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While hover-taxiing, the pilot experienced a sudden uncommanded right yaw. The aircraft was at a 5-foot hover when it spun 360 degrees (about the mast) to the right. The pilot attempted to stop the turn with full left pedal but the aircraft did not respond. After a full rotation, the lower horizontal stabilizer struck the ground. The aircraft had continued to spin an additional 180 degrees when the pilot rolled off the throttle, applied full up collective, and pressed the right pedal. The aircraft touched down abruptly next to the taxiway. The outboard 11 inches of one tail rotor blade had separated along with the outboard 6 inches from the second blade. Both separated blade sections were recovered with both showing similar leading edge damage near the blade tips. The geometric design of the vertical and horizontal stabilizer acts as a "stinger" or guard for the tail rotor. While there is evidence of ground contact with the lower horizontal stabilizer, it is indicative of lateral contact consistent with damage incurred during a right yaw. The damage to the vertical stabilizer shows evidence of mechanical loading originating from the movement of the lower horizontal stabilizer. The resultant loading produced left to right buckling of the vertical stabilizer just below the tail boom. This damage was also consistent with a right yaw. There was no evidence of contact between the either stabilizer and the tail rotor. The extent of damage to the stabilizers and geometric position of the tail rotor did not support the witness contention of contact between the tail rotor and the ground. The differential loading created by the unequal tail rotor blade separation resulted in an unbalanced system feeding back to the tail rotor gearbox.
Probable cause
the result of a foreign object contacting the tail rotor blade(s) while the aircraft was hover taxiing, which caused blade separation with subsequent loss of anti-torque (lateral) control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA050
- Event ID
- 20001212X20262
- Case number
- LAX00LA050
- 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: 88e471473ddec08fd50d9206aa5a84f4e75cdab87c7d1b57137ad38e5223dfe6; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:34:53.186Z.