CEN12CA226 · Ruiz E RAF 2000
Ruiz E RAF 2000 · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From Chambers County Airport (T00) to Chambers County Airport (T00)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA226
- 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
Ruiz E RAF 2000
- Aircraft type
- Ruiz RAF-2000
- 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
- N9012R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chambers County Airport (T00), Anahuac, TXTo Chambers County Airport (T00), Anahuac, TX
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot and flight instructor were practicing takeoffs, flight maneuvers, and landings in the student pilot's gyroplane. After landing on the runway with a right crosswind, the student pilot attempted to taxi the gyroplane back to the hangar. During the taxi forward, the gyroplane began to roll to the right and the rotor blades contacted the runway. The student pilot stated that the nosewheel and cyclic positions at the time of the forward taxi were likely the reasons for the roll to the right; this statement was consistent with the student pilot not repositioning the nosewheel and cyclic after the landing to a safe taxi position. The gyroplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage structure. The student pilot and flight instructor reported no mechanical malfunctions prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper nosewheel and cyclic positioning during the taxi, which resulted in the gyroplane's main rotor contacting the runway surface. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s inadequate supervision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA226
- Event ID
- 20120404X52616
- Case number
- CEN12CA226
- 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: 2315390b8ee60995a6eebb53cc35d33e0e6b4c80b3313033d7440f4abeda3e16; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:39:33.791Z.