CHI08CA238 · Robinson R22 Beta
Strategic Air Robinson R22 Beta · Accident: abrupt maneuver while maneuvering
From Buffalo, ND to Buffalo, ND
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08CA238
- 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
- N57UP
- Operator
- Strategic Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo, NDTo Buffalo, ND
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
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 after passing over power lines, he performed a steep descent toward the field he was spraying. The helicopter had a "high descent rate and excessive nose down attitude" during the spray run entry. The pilot was unable to arrest the descent before the main rotor speed dropped below a safe operating speed. A run-on landing was made in the field at about 30 mph, but the helicopter pitched forward and the main rotor impacted terrain. The main rotor, tailboom, fuselage, and landing skids were damaged. The pilot reported that the accident could have been prevented if he had performed a "less aggressive spray run entry."
Probable cause
The pilot's excessive descent rate and his failure to maintain clearance from terrain during the spray run entry.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08CA238
- Event ID
- 20080826X01322
- Case number
- CHI08CA238
- 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: e78058095402eec5a7d00e9970f62c6fdda0db6cbd314a8e31070414bf9197ce; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:06:22.890Z.