LAX08CA182 · Robinson R44 II
Mission Mountain Helicopters Robinson R44 II · Accident: hard landing
From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO) to Missoula Montana Airport (MSO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA182
- 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 II
- 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
- N272SW
- Operator
- Mission Mountain Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MTTo Missoula Montana Airport (MSO)
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor was having the student practice landing approaches. With an airspeed of 60 to 65 knots, the student initiated a left base turn, lowering the collective, and adding aft cyclic for a normal approach to an open field. During the turn, the instructor noted that the helicopter was descending faster than anticipated, and that "the collective was too far down, the cyclic was too far back, and [the student] had a tight hold on both controls." The instructor attempted to regain control but could not move the collective or cyclic due to the student's grip on the controls. The instructor said that no words were spoken as he struggled with the student for control of the helicopter for a period of 3 to 4 seconds. The helicopter landed hard, rolled onto its left side, and instantly caught on fire. Both occupants exited the right door. The helicopter was destroyed by fire.
Probable cause
The student's inadvertent control interference, which the flight instructor was unable to overcome. A contributing factor was the instructor's poor crew coordination in his failure to verbally command the student to relinquish the controls and his inadequate supervision of the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA182
- Event ID
- 20080709X00997
- Case number
- LAX08CA182
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 5a7220eadf7706cb52e690baabc85640d4ed34e986e4d0c9ac09cd5dbcafb9bd; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:52:00.586Z.