ATL07CA046 · Robinson R-44
Blue Ridge Helicopters Robinson R-44 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 9A1 · Covington, GA to 9A1 · Covington, GA
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07CA046
- 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 R-44
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R-44
- 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
- N448BP
- Operator
- Blue Ridge Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 9A1 · Covington, GATo 9A1 · Covington, GA
- 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 out of 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
- 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 › 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 student pilot lost control of the helicopter after takeoff during his first solo flight and struck the ground in uncontrolled flight. According to the student pilot, "I lifted off and obtained a stable hover. As I started forward in the helicopter, it started to gyrate. I remember coming down in the grassy area at the entrance to the airport. The main rotor blades struck the ground. The next thing I remember is the Air Rescue people working to get me out of the helicopter." The Certified Flight Instructor (CFI), stated that this was the student pilot's first solo flight. The student pilot and the CFI had been doing dual flight instruction for about 45 minutes prior to the accident. Following the dual instruction the CFI ask the student pilot if he "felt good about a solo, and he stated yes". The student pilot lifted off with a "slight bobble" to about a five foot hover and seemed to recover from the "bobble". The CFI was in communication with the student by 2-way radio. The student lifted the helicopter upward and the helicopter started to gyrate erratically, gradually moving northbound. The student lost control and the helicopter struck the ground approximately 150 yards from the liftoff spot. Examination of the helicopter by an FAA inspector found that the helicopter struck the ground in a nose down attitude, substantially damaging the main rotors and cockpit. There were no mechanical problems reported by the student pilot or discovered during the post-accident examination of the helicopter.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter during liftoff, which resulted in an in-flight collision with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07CA046
- Event ID
- 20070327X00332
- Case number
- ATL07CA046
- 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: 6a47e4fe4d5e11a107b650b84ea41a8c1c0a646b8b718cee16ef37048de54d80; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:50:37.776Z.