WPR11CA031 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Guidance Helicopters Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: hard landing during autorotation
From Prescott, AZ to Prescott, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA031
- 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
- N844SH
- Operator
- Guidance Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prescott, AZTo Prescott, AZ
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A certificated flight instructor (CFI) and a student were practicing 180-degree autorotations. The CFI noted that, during the initial entry into the autorotation, the student pilot maintained proper rotor rpm and airspeed. About halfway through the 180-degree turn, the helicopter became nose-low and the airspeed increased. As the helicopter transitioned through about three-quarters of the turn, the CFI took authority of the helicopter's controls and attempted to correct the airspeed. The CFI stated that she was unable to correct and the helicopter touched down hard in an open dirt field. The helicopter subsequently rolled over and came to rest on its left side. Examination of the helicopter revealed that the tail boom was separated and the fuselage sustained structural damage. The CFI reported that no mechanical malfunctions existed during the practice autorotation and accident sequence.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain the proper airspeed and the certificated flight instructor's inadequate supervision and delayed remedial action during a practice autorotation, which resulted in a hard landing and rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA031
- Event ID
- 20101101X21849
- Case number
- WPR11CA031
- 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: ae50e91214c6987fa0a966e5344f4d4babb8452d01e2ad68bc4c44d79f6b537c; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:31:47.980Z.