CEN11WA105 · Robinson R22
Robinson R22 · Accident
From Sospel to Avignon
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11WA105
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · 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 R22
- 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
- G-CBVL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SospelTo Avignon
- 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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Tourrettes-sur-Loup, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
On December 9, 2010, at 0755 coordinated universal time, a Robinson R22, United Kingdom registered G-CBVL, operated by Spiral Wing, Ltd., was destroyed when it impacted mountainous terrain under unknown circumstances near Tourrettes-sur-Loup, France. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The pilot and one passenger were fatally injured. The flight originated from Sospel, France.
The accident investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the French government. This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information released by or obtained from the French government or the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses Zone Sud 200 rue de Paris Aêroport du Bourget 93350 Le Bourget Cedex France
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11WA105
- Event ID
- 20101213X65626
- Case number
- CEN11WA105
- 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.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9d9c76f6588ebf21ee62b89be03dcccd78896337de89f0e23086d782800ed6b2; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:10:23.168Z.