ERA12LA399 · Robinson Helicopter Company R22 MARINER
Watercraft Photo Helicopter Robinson Helicopter Company R22 MARINER · Accident: simulated/training event en route
From Wilmington International Airport (ILM) to Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA399
- 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 Company R22 MARINER
- 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
- N1089N
- Operator
- Watercraft Photo Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilmington International Airport (ILM), Wilmington, NCTo Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR), Myrtle Beach, SC
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Simulated/training event
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the helicopter was established in cruise flight at 600 feet mean sea level and an airspeed of 75 knots when she entered a practice autorotation over the ocean, with the intention of a power recovery. The pilot lowered the collective pitch to the full down position and rolled the throttle to the full off position. The pilot then raised the collective pitch and the main rotor rpm started to decrease and the low main rotor audio sounded. The pilot increased the throttle and increased collective, and the main rotor rpm continued to decrease. The helicopter continued to descend until it impacted the ocean and rolled over inverted. The pilot and pilot-rated passenger stated there were no mechanical problems with the helicopter.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly execute the helicopter practice autorotation recovery, which resulted in a collision with the water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA399
- Event ID
- 20120616X00943
- Case number
- ERA12LA399
- 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: 06fffa02316173d11bdd81d7e60165e5b64a8fa67dfdb17213314b799d55c42b; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:32:13.964Z.