SEA07CA256 · Rogerson Hiller Corp. RH-1100
Rogerson Hiller Corp. RH-1100 · Accident: roll over during landing
From Skagit Regional Airport (KBVS) to Seattle Paine Field International Airport (KPAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07CA256
- 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
Rogerson Hiller Corp. RH-1100
- Aircraft type
- Rogerson Hiller RH-1100
- 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
- N6014U
- Operator
- David A. Robinson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skagit Regional Airport (KBVS), Burliington, WATo Seattle Paine Field International Airport (KPAE), Everett, WA
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route to his planned destination, the pilot noticed that one of two latches on the right side cabin door had come loose. He therefore elected to land in a grassy area alongside the runway of a nearby airstrip. While turning from base to final, the cyclic was momentarily restricted by being caught on the shorts of the passenger. Although the movement of the cyclic was only momentarily restricted, it resulted in the pilot delaying his transition to a slower airspeed and a reduced rate of descent prior to establishing a pre-landing hover. Instead of executing a go-around, the pilot decided to continue his transition, but he was unable to enter a hover prior to touching down with a slight forward movement on the rough uneven terrain. When the helicopter touched down, the left skid became stuck in a rut, and that, along with a slight tailwind and the residual forward movement of the helicopter, resulted in a dynamic rollover. In his written statement, the pilot said, "Making a go-around would have been the best way to prevent this accident."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to execute a go-around and his failure to reduce his groundspeed to zero prior to touching down on the rough/uneven terrain. Factors include the momentary restriction of a flight control, rough/uneven terrain, and a tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07CA256
- Event ID
- 20071012X01579
- Case number
- SEA07CA256
- 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: bdfbc12eb08b849572bc792b94e04e6e8ee1c4a6649ff842dc631fb95b0571a0; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:24:14.673Z.