SEA07CA193 · Robinson R 22 Beta
Silver State Helicopters Robinson R 22 Beta · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07CA193
- 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 22 Beta
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R-22
- 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
- N457SH
- Operator
- Silver State Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CA
- 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
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Dual student › Cyclic, improper use of
- Dual student › Throttle/power control, improper use of
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
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) and student pilot were practicing hover autorotations. The CFI noted that the student had expressed difficulty with sufficient pedal inputs in the past, and the helicopter would yaw excessively to the left. The CFI demonstrated the maneuver to the student, showing him to establish the helicopter in a 2-foot hover, look outside and pick a reference point to maintain heading, position his hand on the throttle to roll it off, and as throttle is rolled off, prepare to apply right pedal to counteract the left yaw. The student pilot then assumed the controls and configured the helicopter for the hovering autorotation. The CFI had his left hand on the collective, his right hand on the cyclic, and his feet were guarding the pedals. The student counted down, "three, two, one…" and rolled the throttle on while adding right pedal. The helicopter yawed hard and fast to the right and the student pulled aft cyclic. The CFI attempted to regain control of the helicopter; however, the tail cone contacted the ground and the helicopter came to rest on its left side. The CFI stated that there were no mechanical malfunctions with the helicopter, prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper use of the throttle and cyclic, and the certified flight instructor's inadequate supervision, which resulted in the collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07CA193
- Event ID
- 20070723X01000
- Case number
- SEA07CA193
- 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: c96b9c1be62508d201eecbc3aa1011da969cf3894c718e977611b4f01be16efe; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:41:40.967Z.