SEA04CA122 · Robinson R22 Mariner
Hillsboro Aviation Robinson R22 Mariner · Accident: loss of control in flight during an uncontrolled descent
From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO) to Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04CA122
- 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 Mariner
- 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
- N856HA
- Operator
- Hillsboro Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO), Hillsboro, ORTo Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO)
- 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft 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 flight instructor reported that they were in the process of practicing "maximum performance takeoff abort - backwards." The student was on the controls during the maximum performance takeoff phase to an altitude of about 150 feet above ground level, and the instructor took over the controls to demonstrate the abort procedures. The instructor took the controls just prior to call for the abort. When the abort phase began, the instructor applied aft cyclic and slightly lowered the collective. The helicopter had been in a tail low attitude and started to descend into "settling with power." The instructor applied forward cyclic and lowered the collective, however the helicopter did not have sufficient altitude to level out or gain airspeed to recover before impacting the ground on the right side skid. The helicopter pivoted around about 180 degrees then rolled over onto its left side.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control resulting in an uncontrolled descent and subsequent roll over. Low altitude flight and the pilot's encounter with settling with power were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04CA122
- Event ID
- 20040803X01137
- Case number
- SEA04CA122
- 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: fed28558c71f239218bd2fee83e928893ad9ae61833fb43a5111e0acb0690456; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:12:17.349Z.