WPR09CA470 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Mojave Aviation Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT) to North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA470
- 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
- N29LE
- Operator
- Mojave Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT), Las Vegas, NVTo North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT), Las Vegas, NV
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
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 pilot stated that he was orbiting at 50 knots about 100 feet above the 11,800-foot mean sea level (msl) mountain peak. As he flew the helicopter out of the leeward side of the peak, he encountered a downdraft. He maneuvered the helicopter toward a wide open valley that descended about 5,000 feet below. The downdraft pushed the helicopter into the face of the mountain, despite the pilot's application of full collective and descending flight into the valley. The helicopter impacted the mountain slope, caught fire, and tumbled. The pilot and his two passengers egressed the burning helicopter with minor injuries. The pilot hiked to the peak, and called for rescue using a cell phone. The calculated density altitude for the conditions was 13,918 feet. The published maximum operating density altitude for the helicopter was 14,000 feet. The pilot stated that the helicopter had no mechanical failures or malfunctions during the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control and terrain clearance while maneuvering at a low altitude above high terrain. Contributing to the accident was a downdraft and high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA470
- Event ID
- 20090928X05618
- Case number
- WPR09CA470
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-09-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 670de9a839ed898682d8fd768e65e29c116211bd8417db072803c4ab05963bd5; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:21:19.193Z.