CEN09CA157 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Helicopter Services Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: loss of control in flight during autorotation
From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH) to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA157
- 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
- N234LA
- Operator
- Helicopter Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Tomball, TXTo David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Tomball, TX
- 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
- Autorotation
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While performing a 180-degree autorotation, the student pilot raised the collective in order to maintain the helicopter's rpms within normal parameters. At approximately 250 feet above ground level, the rotor rpm was allowed to decay to 95% at which time the helicopter began to sink. The lowest observed rpm was 85%. The certified flight instructor took control of the helicopter could not recover the helicopter prior to an impact with terrain. The helicopter landed hard and rolled onto its left side. Substantial crushing damage was sustained to the fuselage. Winds at the time of the accident were 190 degrees at 14 knots gusting to 30 knots.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain adequate main rotor rpm and the instructor's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA157
- Event ID
- 20090209X44415
- Case number
- CEN09CA157
- 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: 6bd5eba06df1fea257adadd93dd1e5532ba362b6a99116d65228c508d4ab6ead; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:44:18.455Z.