ERA09FA022 · Robinson R22 Beta
Robinson R22 Beta · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From Lt Warren Eaton Airport (OIC) to Zanesville Municipal Airport (ZZV)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09FA022
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N943MH
- Operator
- Earl Lee Small
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Lt Warren Eaton Airport (OIC), Norwich, NYTo Zanesville Municipal Airport (ZZV), Zaneville, 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
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on the multi-leg cross-country trip in the accident helicopter two days after receiving his helicopter rating. His instructor cautioned him about the flight, and the pilot delayed his departure on the accident leg due to weather. Radar data and GPS track data depicted the helicopter in a shallow descent, on a westerly track, about 1,700 feet msl, approximately 1 mile prior to the accident site on a north-south ridgeline that reached 1,600 feet msl. Weather reported 6 miles from the accident site included an overcast ceiling at 1,000 feet (2,099 feet msl), and a pilot who departed the airport around the same time as the accident stated that the ceiling was at 500 feet (1,599 feet msl), "with ragged bases and light turbulence." AIRMET SIERRA for instrument meteorological conditions and mountain obscuration was valid for the accident location. Review of local weather revealed generally marginal VFR conditions were present behind the front, although higher terrain was occasionally obscured in clouds. Examination of the wreckage revealed no mechanical or pre-impact anomalies. The pilot had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy 15 months prior to the accident. Just prior to the accident, the pilot was diagnosed with metastatic disease in his lung and liver, findings associated with a very poor prognosis. It is unclear what role, if any, the pilot’s recurrent, metastatic esophageal cancer played in the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions which resulted in controlled flight into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09FA022
- Event ID
- 20081019X15543
- Case number
- ERA09FA022
- 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: 7146c3cff8ae354814fc8ab5698c18fae75dfb76275e906cb21247dfdfe94cb4; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:34:17.567Z.