MIA07CA021 · Robinson R22
Elite Flying & Management Services Robinson R22 · Accident: roll over while maneuvering
From Lakeland Linder International Airport (KLAL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07CA021
- 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
- N2302A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakeland Linder International Airport (KLAL), Lakeland, FLTo 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 in ground effect
- 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
- Roll over
- 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 › 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 certified flight instructor (CFI) stated that he was giving demo discovery flights. He landed, the first passenger got out, and the second passenger got into the helicopter and buckled up. As the CFI started to takeoff, the helicopter came off the ground about 2 inches and rolled to the left. As it began to roll, he put the collective down and rolled the throttle off. The cyclic consistently went to the left even though he was trying to pull it back to the right and the helicopter would not move to the right. The helicopter continued the left roll until contacting the ground, damaging the skids, rotor blades, and tail boom. The responding FAA inspector stated that the certified flight instructor said the helicopter was used in a Title 14 CFR part 61 flight school, which also gives rides to those who wanted the experience of flying in a helicopter. During the accident flight, he picked the aircraft up to a hover and felt the aircraft moving to the left. He then asked the passenger if she was pushing the cyclic left and her response was no. The passenger stated to the FAA inspector, when interviewed, that her left leg was not near enough to the center post of the cyclic to touch it and the pilot (flight instructor) didn't say anything during the takeoff. She added that the pilot had both hands on the stick on his left (collective) and he grabbed the control (cyclic) as the helicopter lifted off the ground. Cyclic, collective and tail rotor control continuity was established by the FAA inspector during a post accident examination of the helicopter.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain control of the helicopter during takeoff resulting in a roll over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07CA021
- Event ID
- 20061220X01812
- Case number
- MIA07CA021
- 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: 305d82954bea11467d7bba067cec0ad8bcac66e11503ed458f331dfcfd758124; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:39:04.893Z.