WPR09CA339 · Robinson Helicopter R44
Robinson Helicopter R44 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN) to Auburn Municipal Airport (KAUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA339
- 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 R44
- 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
- N244HP
- Operator
- Dwelle David W
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN), Auburn, CATo Auburn Municipal Airport (KAUN), Auburn, 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
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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 › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that he was flying the helicopter about 500 feet above the ground and decided to descend to follow a riverbed. While descending to the river, one of the passengers alerted him to the presence of power line wires that obstructed their flight path. The pilot applied full aft cyclic and collective in an attempt to avoid colliding with the wires; however, the tail boom and tail rotor contacted the wires. The impact resulted in the separation of the tail rotor blades and the bottom section of the vertical stabilizer from the helicopter. Following the collision the pilot initiated an autorotation. Upon touchdown, the helicopter bounced and when it touched down again, it was moving sideways to the left and rolled over. The helicopter came to rest on the bank of the river on its left side. Examination of the helicopter revealed substantial damage to the main rotor assembly, the tail rotor assembly, vertical stabilizer, tail boom, and fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical anomalies with the helicopter prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate clearance from the power line wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA339
- Event ID
- 20090713X81043
- Case number
- WPR09CA339
- 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: 362f64b10e3b6411b233468e58a15bacc5008991c311423d19ef7100ab1216d1; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:50:19.790Z.