NYC02LA191 · Robinson R-22B
Advanced Helicopter Concepts Robinson R-22B · Accident: hard landing
From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC02LA191
- 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
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
- N2549R
- Operator
- Advanced Helicopter Concepts
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MDTo 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
- Landing
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Dual student › Rotor RPM, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the dual instructional flight, the student pilot was practicing maneuvers in preparation for his helicopter private pilot checkride. The flight instructor briefed a "simulated engine out during takeoff," which the student pilot had not previously performed. The helicopter took off with the student pilot at the controls. About 100 feet and 60-65 knots, the flight instructor advised him that he had a simulated engine failure. The student pilot lowered the collective and rolled off the throttle. He then applied "slight aft cyclic," and raised the collective to slow the descent. The flight instructor attempted to lower the collective while the student pilot continued to raise it. The main rotor rpm deteriorated and the helicopter touched down hard. The main rotor blades flexed, and chopped off the tailboom. The helicopter's height-velocity parameters approximated the "recommended takeoff profile" when the simulated engine failure was initiated. The helicopter manufacturer had written guidelines regarding simulated engine failures, but no written guidance regarding simulated engine failures during takeoff. According to a company representative, the manufacturer taught flight instructors to avoid exposing even high time pilots to simulated power failures during takeoff, since the high power setting could cause a high rotor rpm decay rate.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain adequate rotor rpm, and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action. A factor was the manufacturer's inadequate written guidance regarding simulated engine failures during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC02LA191
- Event ID
- 20020923X05200
- Case number
- NYC02LA191
- 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: 95adf2822cd2b0621fff8dbef9b4e2add2b72b7de574a4249dbf7dca24754a47; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:37:03.033Z.