CHI86FEM03 · Robinson R22A
Robinson R22A · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
From Park Township Airport (HLM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI86FEM03
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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 R22A
- 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
- N8488H
- Operator
- John Veldman
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Park Township Airport (HLM), Holland, MITo 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- 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
- Other person › Clearance, not maintained
- Other person › Passenger briefing, not followed
- Other person › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED HE FLEW INTO THE WOLVERINE POWER PLANT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PICKING UP A PASSENGER TO WHOM HE WAS TO DEMONSTRATE THE HELICOPTER'S ABILITY TO SURVEY POWER LINES. HE CONTINUED TO REPORT, SHORTLY AFTER LANDING DURING NORMAL ENGINE SHUT DOWN PROCEDURES THE INTENDED PASSENGER WALKED INTO THE SPINNING TAIL ROTOR. WITNESSES OBSERVED THE PASSENGERPULL THE HOOD ON HIS PARKA OVER HIS HEAD AND WALK TOWARD THE HELICOPTER WITH HIS HEAD DOWN. THE TERRAIN WAS SNOW COVEREDAT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THE PASSENGER FLEW IN THE HELICOPTER WITH THIS SAME PLT ON THE PREVIOUS DAY AND REPORTEDLY WAS BRIEFED ON THE PROPER BOARDING PROCEDURE. THE PLT ALSO STATED HE WARNED THE PASSENGER ABOUT THE TAIL ROTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI86FEM03
- Event ID
- 20001214X38366
- Case number
- CHI86FEM03
- 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: b5abc48e79ef034f7a0f17878d4ecf0c81e2bf5ebffa7337d00fd357ccbdc4cd; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:43:49.842Z.