CEN12FA139 · Robinson R44 II
CENAC Marine Services Robinson R44 II · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM) to Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12FA139
- 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
- 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 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
- N369TL
- Operator
- CENAC Marine Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM), Houma, LATo Houma Terrebonne Airport (KHUM), Houma, LA
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses saw the helicopter circling at a low altitude and saw the pilot wave at them. None of the witnesses saw the impact, but they heard the impact and saw smoke. They responded to the site and used portable fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire. Examination of the accident site revealed that the helicopter struck several trees and fell straight to the ground in a nose-low attitude, coming to rest on its right side. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Impact signatures were consistent with the engine developing power at impact, and it is likely that, at the time of impact, the helicopter was in a steep descent consistent with settling with power.
Probable cause
The pilot allowed the helicopter to settle with power while maneuvering at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12FA139
- Event ID
- 20120119X92431
- Case number
- CEN12FA139
- 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: 37f837484672e81e4492d4433634eecb3b66675c5ab058b26ded7fceda7177c2; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:07:52.800Z.