DFW08FA218 · Robinson R44 II
Central Illinois Air Robinson R44 II · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Shawnee Regional Airport (SNL) to West Plains Regional Airport (UNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08FA218
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N41411
- Operator
- Central Illinois Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shawnee Regional Airport (SNL), Shawnee, OKTo West Plains Regional Airport (UNO), West Plains, MO
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was on a new aircraft delivery flight from California to the delivery destination in Illinois. The helicopter was being flown by two pilots and was en route to an intermediate stop to drop off the second pilot. Several witnesses were watching the helicopter in normal cruise flight approximately 700 to 1,000 feet above ground level when it suddenly nosed straight down in a 60-degree dive and impacted trees and terrain. The helicopter was destroyed by impact forces and the postimpact fire. The flight instructor had completed the Robinson safety course including an evaluation flight in a Robinson 44 helicopter. The second pilot had completed the Robinson safety course including an evaluation flight in a Robinson 22 helicopter. At the time of the accident the helicopter had accumulated an estimated 17 hours of total time. An on-scene examination of the helicopter and engine showed no pre-crash anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
An in-flight loss of control for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08FA218
- Event ID
- 20080908X01405
- Case number
- DFW08FA218
- 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. 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: 0425d68969f3e0c4ba3a4fc59b67489eebbaa81fc3c557fabb58d0d535b18c6b; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:25:47.406Z.