WPR09CA023 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
USA Academy of Aviation Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: hard landing
From French Valley Airport (F70) to French Valley Airport (F70)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA023
- 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 Helicopter 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
- N8356R
- Operator
- USA Academy of Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From French Valley Airport (F70), Murrieta, CATo French Valley Airport (F70), Murrieta, CA
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) was showing the student how to make a landing approach to 2,500-foot mean sea level hilly terrain. The student had about 13 hours of total flying experience, and the CFI was handling the controls. According to the CFI, the first approach to the landing site was uneventful. During the second approach the low rotor rpm warning horn activated. The CFI reported that he tried to "milk collective and get it back," but he was not successful. The CFI opined that the wind direction may have changed, and he attempted to redirect the helicopter's course into the wind. The CFI was unable to regain rpm and stop the descent. The helicopter impacted the field and rolled over. The CFI reported that when the accident occurred, the helicopter was operating near its maximum certificated gross weight. The out of ground effect hover ceiling was about 3,000 feet, and the density altitude was about 3,200 feet.
Probable cause
The certified flight instructor's failure to maintain adequate rotor rpm during a simulated approach to landing under variable wind, and high density altitude conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA023
- Event ID
- 20081024X50800
- Case number
- WPR09CA023
- 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: db74fee87213598bf685f8531ce2ee3d4ed75737c74b99f60805bd87e5e2caae; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:30:15.686Z.