WPR10LA354 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Pathfinder Helicopters Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: loss of control on ground
From Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC) to Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA354
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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
- N944DW
- Operator
- Pathfinder Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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
- Other
- 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 on ground
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had just landed the helicopter on a flatbed trailer when it was determined that it needed to be moved laterally in order for its skids to be correctly attached to the trailer. Therefore the pilot applied enough collective to make the helicopter "light on the skids," and then he applied cyclic input meant to slide the helicopter laterally. When the helicopter did not slide sideways as the pilot desired, he continued to apply left cyclic input, whereupon the helicopter suddenly began to move in a manner that resulted in it starting to fall off the trailer. During the pilot's attempt to regain directional control by lifting the helicopter clear of the trailer, its main rotor blades came in contact with the truck that the trailer was attached to. Once the blades contacted the truck, the helicopter rotated about 180 degrees and impacted the tarmac beside the trailer. Soon after it impacted the tarmac, a fast-growing fire began. During the accident sequence, an individual who was helping with the loading process was struck by a main rotor blade.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control while attempting to move the helicopter laterally without first lifting it fully off its landing platform.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA354
- Event ID
- 20100717X71900
- Case number
- WPR10LA354
- 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: 2964145cbb61e01e4ab4e07015d5cb46dbbc802f8dbdb746e2626e23af4f418e; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:00:57.408Z.