CHI07LA309 · Robinson R44
Robinson R44 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Jackson Center, OH to Jackson Center, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07LA309
- 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 R44
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- 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
- N8353K
- Operator
- Wilson Anderson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson Center, OHTo Jackson Center, OH
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he felt vibrations in the main rotor while he was approaching the landing zone. The vibrations grew worse and when the helicopter was about 10 - 15 feet above ground level (agl), the vibrations were severe enough that he decided to lower the collective and land. The tail rotor impacted the tall corn and the tail rotor gearbox separated from the tail rotor boom. The helicopter rotated about 180 degrees during ground impact. The main rotor blades impacted the ground, and the landing gear separated from the fuselage. The on-site inspection of the helicopter revealed no preexisting anomalies. Components of the helicopter were shipped to the Robinson Helicopter Company (RHC) for inspection under the oversight of a National Transportation Safety Board aviation safety investigator. The inspection of the helicopter components revealed no preexisting anomalies that would account for the vibrations reported by the pilot.
Probable cause
The reported vibration in the helicopter during an approach for landing for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the mature cornfield.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07LA309
- Event ID
- 20071003X01494
- Case number
- CHI07LA309
- 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: 49d9f7499174f39d562118ec8f0f8eea47e952713b5a20c55e689ca03b6649bc; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:23:07.562Z.