WPR09CA105 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Upper Limit Aviation Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Salt Lake City International Airport (kslc) to Morgan County Airport (42u)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location and departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA105
- 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 Company 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
- N944U
- Operator
- Upper Limit Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (kslc)To Morgan County Airport (42u)
- 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
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route to her destination, the pilot elected to fly the helicopter up a canyon toward rising terrain. Soon after making a low pass over a ridge above 8,000 feet mean sea level, the pilot increased collective in order to climb over upcoming higher terrain. As the collective was increased, the rotor rpm started to drop. The pilot immediately increased throttle, reversed course to fly downhill, and lowered the collective. During the turn, the helicopter encountered a quartering tailwind and began to settle toward the snow-covered down-sloping terrain. Soon thereafter the helicopter contacted the terrain, bounced back into the air, and a main rotor blade severed the tail boom. The helicopter rotated 180 degrees, impacted the terrain, and rolled over. According to the pilot there was no evidence of an engine power loss or any anomaly with the flight control system.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to fly at low altitude while maneuvering in mountainous terrain in a canyon and inadvertently exceeding the climb capability of the helicopter. Contributing to the accident were a high density altitude, mountainous terrain, and a tailwind encountered during the attempted course reversal.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA105
- Event ID
- 20090201X30126
- Case number
- WPR09CA105
- 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: 68c8dee6235048411d5928bfcdfc68f44d54e69b2a0a6132f7e2f364cf7f94c1; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:43:27.395Z.