CHI04CA110 · Robinson R22 Beta
Hummingbird Helicopters Robinson R22 Beta · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA110
- 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 R22 Beta
- 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
- N819TT
- Operator
- Hummingbird Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM), Minneapolis, MNTo 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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
- Dual student › Aircraft control, 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
The helicopter was substantially damaged during an in-flight collision with terrain. The certified flight instructor (CFI) and dual student were practicing normal approaches when the accident occurred. The CFI stated that the third approach was made to an open field and was terminated in a hover about five feet above ground level. The helicopter began yawing to the right and when the dual student did not correct for the rotation, he applied left pedal to stop the yaw. The CFI reported that as he applied the left pedal control input, the dual student stated "You have it," and simultaneously made a "strong" right cyclic input. He stated that as he attempted to recover, the dual student "abruptly" raised the collective without increasing the throttle, causing the rotor speed to decay. The CFI reported that the helicopter climbed and then began to settle toward the ground in a "right drift." He stated: "I was unable to recover the [rotor speed] or align the skids with the ground track before the right skid hit the ground. The skid dug in causing the helicopter to roll over on its right side." The CFI and dual student both reported that there were no failures or malfunctions associated with the helicopter. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector verified control continuity during a post-accident examination. No anomalies consistent with a pre-impact failure were observed. The CFI reported a total flight time of 247 hours, with 63 hours in a Robinson R22 Beta. He reported instructor flight time as 5.6 hours total and 0.4 hours in the R22.
Probable cause
The dual student's failure to maintain control of the helicopter during hovering flight and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action in order to prevent a loss of control. Contributing factors were the flight instructor's lack of dual instruction experience and the low altitude hover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA110
- Event ID
- 20040504X00555
- Case number
- CHI04CA110
- 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: b74738ba82c1ef0cc9bd88c8abddbc80a59096ae9a1c31a2762a61365892b77b; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:15:27.307Z.