IAD00LA054 · Robinson R-22B
Robinson R-22B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Republic Airport (FRG) to Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00LA054
- 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-22B
- 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
- N94RP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NYTo Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP), Islip, NY
- 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
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Rotor RPM, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an aerial photography flight, the helicopter made three circles around some property, and then proceeded to the south. At this point, the passenger looked out the windshield and noticed that they were just above the treetops, about 100-250 above ground level, with a very slow forward airspeed. The helicopter then began to shake and began a high descent rate to the ground. During the descent, the passenger saw the pilot making a lot of control movements, and noted that the low rotor RPM warning horn and light stayed on from the time the helicopter started shaking all the way to the ground. Examination of the helicopter revealed that the collective was found in the full up position, the rotor blades were bent up, and tree limbs were strewn around the accident site. The pilot operating handbook stated that when the low rotor RPM warning horn and caution light are activated, rotor RPM is below safe limits, and the pilot should immediately roll on throttle, lower collective, and in forward flight apply aft cyclic. Examination of the helicopter revealed there were no mechanical malfunctions.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate rotor RPM and failure to follow published recovery procedures after the low rotor RPM warning horn and caution light activated.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00LA054
- Event ID
- 20001212X21480
- Case number
- IAD00LA054
- 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: ee0a0d41d63899e74956429c42a589f8331a60c6fbf17f64df33884a428621f3; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:36:13.131Z.