LAX04CA198 · Robinson R22 Beta II
Robinson R22 Beta II · Accident: hard landing
From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK) to Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04CA198
- 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 II
- 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
- N7521P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CATo Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CA
- 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
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Descent, excessive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter experienced a hard landing and rolled over. The flight departed for a proposed 20-minute tour with the helicopter's gross weight about 1,240 pounds. While en route, the pilot opted to land in an area of flat terrain. During the landing sequence, he slowed the helicopter, and it began to descend. The descent continued and the helicopter landed hard. The helicopter rolled over and the pilot and passenger egressed. After exiting the helicopter, the pilot noted surface wind from the west, which was consistent with a tailwind. The pilot stated that the combination of tailwind conditions and high altitude equated to an undesirable landing environment. He thought that the helicopter's descent rate was "too high" for the conditions. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane. After the accident the California Highway Patrol helicopter air unit landed at the accident site to determine if the occupants were injured. An officer noted that the elevation at the accident site was 8,359 feet and the outside air temperature was about 71 degrees Fahrenheit. Based on the officer's observations, the density altitude was computed to be about 11,000 feet.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain a proper descent rate during the landing approach, which resulted in a hard landing and roll over. Also causal was the pilot's inadequate compensation for tailwind conditions. A factor in the accident was the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04CA198
- Event ID
- 20040608X00755
- Case number
- LAX04CA198
- 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. 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: b2d69338fac7f8d7352ea336adddab4b63b9dd4f4a6877dd5db626cb02705794; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:39:54.003Z.