WPR13CA068 · Robinson R22 BETA
Mountain Ridge Helicopters Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: loss of lift during autorotation
From Logan-Cache Airport (LGU) to Logan-Cache Airport (LGU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13CA068
- 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 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
- N393LE
- Operator
- Mountain Ridge Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Logan-Cache Airport (LGU), Logan, UTTo Logan-Cache Airport (LGU), Logan, UT
- 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
- Loss of lift
- 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 › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the 180-degree autorotation, the student pilot maintained an airspeed of 65 knots, with rotor rpm in the green. As the student rolled out of the turn about 300 feet above ground level and at 70 knots, the rotor rpm continued to remain in the green. However, before the flare, the rotor rpm began to decay and failed to build as the flare was entered. The flight instructor then took control of the helicopter and immediately rolled on throttle to recover engine power and to maintain rotor rpm, but there was insufficient engine power to recover, and the low rotor rpm light and horn activated. Because power was not available for a full-power-on landing, the flight instructor initiated a full-down autorotation to a taxiway. During the landing, the helicopter skidded across and off the wet taxiway into loose gravel and mud before the left skid dug into the ground, resulting in the helicopter rolling over and coming to rest on its left side. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to its welded frames, firewall, and tail cone. The flight instructor reported no preaccident mechanical or malfunctions or failures with the helicopter or flight controls that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s delayed remedial action and inadequate supervision during a practice autorotation, which resulted in a failure to maintain adequate main rotor rpm. Contributing to the accident was the wet landing surface.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13CA068
- Event ID
- 20121215X11534
- Case number
- WPR13CA068
- 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: 414a68c6dd021be535da294b586d486087b19c3ef7d32563beb16d72d7a66f30; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:36:06.642Z.