CHI00LA134 · Robinson R22 BETA
Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA134
- 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
- N8321K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter took off from the roof of a building and was turned into the wind. The pilot said as he started forward, 'the rpms start to drop.' The manifold pressure was 24 inches. He continued forward, manipulating the collective and throttle, so that he could clear a nearby 2-story building. 'When I cleared the roof line, I dropped the collective, rolled the throttle and aft cyclic, but [I] didn't have enough altitude to recover, and into the ground we went.' An examination of the helicopter revealed no anomalies. The weather report for Anoka, Minnesota, 10 miles south-southeast of the accident site, 20 minutes before the accident, was 800 overcast, 2 miles visibility with fog, temperature 60 degrees F, and dew point 58 degrees F. DOT/FAA Publication CT-82/44, Light Aircraft Piston Engine Carburetor Ice Detector/Warning Device Sensitivity/Effectiveness, June 1982, Carburetor Icing Probability Chart, shows for a temperature of 60 degrees F, and a dew point of 58 degrees F, 'serious icing conditions at cruise power' exists.
Probable cause
carburetor ice. Factors relating to this accident were the icing conditions, the pilot's attempted emergency landing and the low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA134
- Event ID
- 20001212X20955
- Case number
- CHI00LA134
- 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: 9a0fa43a575801ce726a682fcb96b59c02aba7e94c6fb724bb2b89417c06e860; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:54:26.493Z.