DEN04CA143 · Robinson R22 Beta 2
Silver State Helicopters Robinson R22 Beta 2 · Accident: hard landing
From Provo Municipal Airport (PVU) to Provo Municipal Airport (PVU)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN04CA143
- 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 2
- 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
- N7533E
- Operator
- Silver State Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Provo Municipal Airport (PVU), Provo, UTTo Provo Municipal Airport (PVU)
- 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
- Emergency procedure › Simulated
- Pilot in command › Adequate rotor RPM, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Flare, improper
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 was preparing the commercial pilot for his upcoming flight instructor practical test. He asked the pilot to demonstrate a simulated engine failure with autorotation to landing. The pilot rolled off the power and entered an autorotation. Airspeed was between 65 and 70 knots, and rpm was maintained between 98 and 100 percent. The rate of descent was 2,000 feet per minute (fpm) in the 180-degree turn, but decreased to 1,800 fpm when they lined up with the runway. Rpm was at 97 percent and started to drop. The warning horn and light activated at 100 feet agl. Rpm was at 94 percent. The instructor took control of the helicopter and applied full power and "a small cyclic flare, and lowered the collective slightly to recover rpm." The helicopter began to shake with a low frequency vibration. Rpm was between 92 and 94 percent. Approximately 50 feet agl, the instructor applied "a strong cyclic flare" to reduce the rate of descent. The vibrations continued and the helicopter continued to settle. Just before ground contact, the instructor noted the rpm needles were "married at 92 percent (sic)." The helicopter contacted the runway tail first, then the rear portion of the skids hit. The helicopter bounced and began to spin. The helicopter came to rest right side up and the engine continued to run.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain adequate rotor rpm during a practice autorotation, and the flight instructor's improper flare. A contributing factor was the instructor's inadequate supervision of the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN04CA143
- Event ID
- 20050209X00166
- Case number
- DEN04CA143
- 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: 562682cb29b403993d193615d15c96c60334dafbc1f261922a1e4672a17cbb6b; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:08:25.315Z.