LAX03LA191 · Robinson R-22 Beta
Quantum Helicopters Robinson R-22 Beta · Accident: hard landing
From Scottsdale Airport (KSDL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA191
- 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-22 Beta
- 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
- N7508D
- Operator
- Quantum Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (KSDL), Scottsdale, AZTo 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 › Throttle/power control, improper use of
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Control interference, encountered
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, attempted
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Rotor RPM, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter landed hard and rolled over during a power recovery from a practice autorotation. The certified flight instructor (CFI) stated that he and the student experienced a "total rotor stall" due to a failure to do a power recovery. He and the student had performed a series of autorotations prior to the eventful one. The entry and glide were "very well managed, the student nailed his rpm control and pitch in the glide." During the level off from the flare, the student was beginning to raise the collective as power was restored. The CFI told the student to begin rolling on the throttle, simultaneously reaching for the throttle himself to assist the student in rolling it on. However, the student firmly gripped the throttle and rolled it off. The instructor reported that he could not override the student's input prior to a main rotor rpm decay that caused the helicopter to land hard. Due to gusty wind conditions, the helicopter was blown off course and came to rest on its left side in a mature cactus (cholla) bed. Flight and throttle control continuity was established and no preimpact anomalies were found.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper use of the throttle control, the certified flight instructor (CFI) inadequate supervision, and the student's control interference, which resulted in a loss of main rotor rpm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA191
- Event ID
- 20030617X00889
- Case number
- LAX03LA191
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-06-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5c3fc1bc80fda206caa417945c31b46f6aaa855b752ee5b03be261f32786833a; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:27:29.900Z.