ERA13LA045 · Robinson Helicopter Company R22
Helicopter Academy Robinson Helicopter Company R22 · Accident: hard landing during autorotation
From Thomas C Russell Field (ALX) to Dawson Municipal Airport (K16J)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA045
- 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
- 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
- N231TM
- Operator
- Helicopter Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Thomas C Russell Field (ALX), Alexander City, ALTo Dawson Municipal Airport (K16J), Dawson, GA
- 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
- Autorotation
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
After departure, the helicopter began to vibrate at an altitude of about 300 feet above ground level (agl). The pilot chose to return to the airport to perform a precautionary landing. The pilot initiated an autorotation about 100 feet agl at an airspeed of between 45 to 50 knots but could not control the helicopter. The pilot applied aft cyclic to flare the helicopter; however, it did not lose airspeed. The low rotor rpm aural warning activated during the maneuver, and the helicopter subsequently landed hard and rolled over on its right side. Postaccident examinations of the engine and airframe did not reveal any anomalies that would have caused the vibration the helicopter experienced after takeoff. If the pilot had initiated the autorotation sooner, she may have had adequate airspeed to establish the glide and a sufficient amount of rotor rpm to cushion the landing and retain positive control of the helicopter.
Probable cause
The pilot’s delayed decision to initiate an autorotation and her subsequent improper conduct of the autorotation, which resulted in a hard landing, after the helicopter started vibrating for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examinations revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA045
- Event ID
- 20121102X31037
- Case number
- ERA13LA045
- 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: 26cc3ebc0c01e446cc35b0beaa45ce498a4a2b7739828e3fb1c77cdea6ce8a19; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:19:30.435Z.