DEN07CA115 · Robinson R22 Beta
Rotorspins Robinson R22 Beta · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG) to Sandia Airpark Estates East Airport (1N1)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN07CA115
- 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
- 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
- N74536
- Operator
- Rotorspins
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, NMTo Sandia Airpark Estates East Airport (1N1), Edgewood, NM
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Pilot in command › Loss of tail rotor effectiveness, encountered
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, he was on a solo cross country flight. Prior to departure from a local airport, he refueled the helicopter with 15 gallons of fuel. After departure, the helicopter headed north, turned to the east, and then turned to a southerly direction. While in cruise flight at 6,800 feet mean sea level (msl), the student reported that the helicopter began losing altitude. In an attempt to recover the altitude, the student increased collective and reduced forward airspeed. At 1,000 feet above ground level and airspeed of 50 to 60 knots, the student further increased the collective and the helicopter "pitched, then turned rapidly to the right." The student partially lowered the collective and did not attempt to use the pedals to stop the turn as the helicopter continued to lose altitude. After the helicopter rotated approximately 160 degrees to the right, the helicopter "stopped or slowed turning." While heading in a northerly direction, the student then noticed a radio tower in front of the helicopter and applied right cyclic to avoid the tower. The student attempted to land the helicopter to a parking lot. During the attempted landing, the helicopter contacted power lines, impacted the parking lot, and came to rest on its left side. Examination of the helicopter revealed no anomalies with the airframe or engine. The calculated density altitude for the weather conditions at the time of the accident was approximately 9,600 feet.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during an encounter with the loss of tail rotor effectiveness. Contributing factors were the high density altitude and the power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN07CA115
- Event ID
- 20070808X01137
- Case number
- DEN07CA115
- 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: ab2ae306f4224fcb791133b330c3396c36dbc528b7136099ab1b1bb1200450e3; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:40:38.911Z.