WPR13FA054 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
From Corona Municipal Airport (AJO) to Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13FA054
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Robinson Helicopter Company 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
- N4204A
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corona Municipal Airport (AJO), Corona, CATo Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL), Fullerton, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2009)
- 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 · into takeoff position
- 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
- Ground collision
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had positioned the helicopter facing toward a fuel island and had added about 40 gallons of fuel. A review of a security video showed that the helicopter cabin was partially under a circular metal canopy that covered the island. After fueling and while still under the canopy, the helicopter lifted off, and the pilot immediately made a right turn. After turning nearly 180 degrees, the helicopter pitched forward, and the tail and main rotor blades rose and contacted the metal canopy. The helicopter then began to flail while turning and subsequently came to rest after turning 180 degrees back to its original direction. Several seconds later, a fire and explosion occurred. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
An review of the autopsy report revealed that the pilot's death was caused by thermal-related injuries and that he most likely would have survived the accident if no fire had occurred. The helicopter manufacturer issued several service bulletins advising owners to retrofit R44 all-aluminum fuel tanks with bladder-type tanks to improve the R44 fuel system's resistance to a postaccident fuel leak and the potential for a subsequent fire. The helicopter had not been retrofitted with these modifications. The NTSB has issued Safety Recommendation A-14-1 to the Federal Aviation Administration to require the retrofit.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance between the helicopter’s main rotor blades and the metal canopy of a fuel island.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13FA054
- Event ID
- 20121126X75106
- Case number
- WPR13FA054
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-11-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 234b454f7a18743868ab9b38a4f1346463b9290f0fdbbbb968d2e5f74a1db8ef; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:49:12.025Z.