CHI03LA053 · Robinson R22B
Robinson R22B · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Sheboygan County Memorial Airport (SBM) to Wittman Regional Airport (OSH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA053
- 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 R22B
- 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
- N530DB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sheboygan County Memorial Airport (SBM), Sheboygan, WITo Wittman Regional Airport (OSH), Oshkosh, WI
- 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
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
- Unqualified person › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instructional helicopter flight impacted terrain during a hover taxi while being piloted by a non-rated helicopter pilot seeking to accumulate flight time towards a helicopter rating. Dark night conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. A rated helicopter pilot who did not hold certified flight instructor certificate was seated in the left pilot seat. The non-rated pilot began a right turn to taxi to a taxiway when the turn rate began to accelerate rapidly. The rated pilot attempted to regain control of the helicopter by applying a left pedal control input before the helicopter impacted the ground.
Probable cause
The directional control not maintained by the unrated helicopter pilot, and the remedial action not performed by the pilot-in-command. The pilot-in-command's lack of certification as a certified flight instructor and the dark night conditions were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA053
- Event ID
- 20030123X00095
- Case number
- CHI03LA053
- 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: 3702a70e1cb80ee683c375c1f8890b8fdc3bdd13dede45bb19e83af57b4e273c; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:33:27.324Z.