LAX05CA078 · Robinson R22
Robinson R22 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD) to Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05CA078
- 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
- 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
- N7535Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZTo Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZ
- 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
- 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) › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Tail rotor/anti-torque control, improper use of
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 collided with terrain following a loss of antitorque control during a practice slope landing. On the third or fourth practice landing, the helicopter's skids were positioned so that the rear portions angled downwards toward lower terrain. As the student pilot configured the flight controls to remove the load off the rotor blades, the tail of the helicopter began to tip backwards. The CFI took control of the helicopter and added power to prevent the tail rotor from striking terrain. The helicopter responded by rotating to the right about the vertical axis. The CFI attempted to maintain level flight and counteract the spin by applying antitorque pedal input, but was unable to maintain control of the helicopter. After four or five revolutions to the right, the helicopter's right front section impacted terrain
Probable cause
the certified flight instructor's inadequate use of the antitorque control pedals while adding throttle, which led to a loss of directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05CA078
- Event ID
- 20050228X00239
- Case number
- LAX05CA078
- 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: 2cbeeadf282bee32d4f35e18a63b2b81a127871fe89a57a1d440def5085110ce; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:19:33.643Z.