WPR12LA140 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Sirius Flying Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to Palo Alto Airport (PAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA140
- 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
- N290SH
- Operator
- Sirius Flying
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CATo Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CA
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a solo instructional flight, the pilot reported that while on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, just before turning to the base leg, the helicopter sustained a loss of rotor rpm. The pilot reported that he entered an autorotation and that the throttle was unresponsive. After landing in a marsh area, the helicopter rolled over.
A postaccident examination of the helicopter and a successful engine run revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot's flight instructor related that the pilot had a documented history of inadvertently gripping the throttle on the collective which, while manipulating the collective, would result in overriding the governor and a low rotor condition.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper use of the throttle grip, which resulted in the deactivation of the rpm governor and a loss of rotor rpm.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA140
- Event ID
- 20120318X65755
- Case number
- WPR12LA140
- 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, coordinates. 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: b6be6de0e30883832a9da9bb8d44b474d354bffc90100622d6817e3f960825f0; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:28:39.772Z.