LAX02LA071 · Richard S. Anderson Rotorway Exec 162F
Richard S. Anderson Rotorway Exec 162F · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Willcox, AZ to Willcox, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA071
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Richard S. Anderson Rotorway Exec 162F
- Aircraft type
- Richard S Anderson ROTORWAY EXEC 162F
- 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
- N30545
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Willcox, AZTo Willcox, AZ
- 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 in ground effect
- 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
- Owner/builder › Acft/equip, inadequate control location
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Rotorcraft flight control, cyclic control › Movement restricted
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While hovering in ground effect in a 10 mph wind, a 20 mph gust was encountered. The pilot attempted to maintain control by movement of the cyclic control, but the helicopter impacted the ground and rolled over. In a verbal statement, the pilot asserted that when he had attempted to move the cycle control to the right to stabilize the helicopter, his right hand contacted his right thigh, which was against the installed right side collective control. He asserted that this momentarily restricted his available range of cycle movement. The helicopter then drifted left, impacted the ground, and rolled over. The pilot's flight instructor had authorized his student to fly in wind conditions not exceeding 10 mph.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to compensate for a gust condition and to maintain lateral control while hovering due to restricted cyclic control movement, which resulted from an inadequate control location/design.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA071
- Event ID
- 20020204X00173
- Case number
- LAX02LA071
- 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, coordinates. 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: f203803154074cf5f603663f4fab4c684bdadcb634d976fbea85166c7beaf061; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:47:01.139Z.