ERA09LA284 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF) to Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA284
- 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
- N456SH
- Operator
- Richard H. Bock · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Winter Haven, FLTo Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Winter Haven, FL
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that during the downwind leg for a practice autorotative landing while flying at 600 to 625 feet mean sea level with the governor on, he applied carburetor heat and five seconds later he perceived by sound that the engine lost power. He turned onto base leg, and attempted to restart the engine but allowed the main rotor rpm to decrease to 87 percent. He stopped his restart attempts and initiated descent for an autorotative landing. He maintained 65 knots during the descent and when the flight was at 40 feet with obstacles ahead (mobile homes), he intentionally slowed the helicopter. At 20 feet above ground level he pulled collective which activated the main rotor rpm warning and resulted in a hard landing. Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed the throttle, mixture, and carburetor heat control rigging were correct. No contaminants of the fuel system were noted. Following recovery of the helicopter with the main rotor blades removed, an FAA inspector observed the engine start and operate to idle rpm. The conditions (temperature and dew point) were favorable for serious carburetor icing at only glide power.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA284
- Event ID
- 20090508X50741
- Case number
- ERA09LA284
- 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: 7639fed679df1ad802c0d64f9ed70667fdf6631094d60da7c2ca88fc7e780aaa; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:01:48.660Z.