ERA13LA116 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Northeast Helicopters Flight Services Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: flight control system malfunction/failure during autorotation
From Ellington Airport (7B9) to Ellington Airport (7B9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA116
- 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 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
- N26NE
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellington Airport (7B9), Ellington, CTTo Ellington Airport (7B9), Ellington, CT
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the flight instructor, the helicopter remained at traffic pattern altitude in order to conduct a practice autorotation. As the helicopter turned onto the final leg of the traffic pattern, the instructor and the pilot receiving instruction initiated an autorotation from about 950 feet above ground level by lowering the collective and reducing the throttle. Upon entry, the pilots observed an "excessively high" rotor rpm indication that continued to climb toward the top of the tachometer. Both pilots raised the collective control and pushed the cyclic control forward to decrease the rotor rpm, but the rotor rpm remained high and did not respond to control inputs. As the helicopter approached the runway, the instructor elected to terminate the autorotation with power and instructed the pilot to "join" the needles on the dual tachometer by restoring full engine power. Both the instructor and the pilot applied engine power simultaneously; however, the engine tachometer indicated an overspeed condition. The instructor assumed sole control of the helicopter and initiated a deceleration, but the helicopter pitched up, rolled right, and impacted the ground on its side, resulting in substantial damage to the main rotor and fuselage.
Examination of the wreckage revealed that the vertical collective control push-pull tube was disconnected from the collective jackshaft assembly. A search of the wreckage resulted in the recovery of the attachment bolt and its associated washers and locknut, but the locking device was not found. Examination of the bolt and locknut threads revealed that they were undamaged. The bolt, locknut, washers, spacers, and the interior bore of the collective jackshaft assembly exhibited radial and axial smearing and fretting wear scarring of their contact surfaces. The wear was consistent with a lack of tightening force on the attachment hardware at installation. The helicopter's most recent overhaul was completed about 2 years before the accident, and subsequent inspections were performed between the time of the overhaul and the accident. The operator stated that he, along with licensed and unlicensed mechanics who he supervised, worked on the helicopter during the 6 months required for completion of the overhaul.
Probable cause
The separation of the collective push-pull tube and jackshaft assembly, which resulted in the total loss of helicopter control and collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the inadequate supervision of maintenance personnel by the operator during overhaul, which resulted in inadequate tightening force applied to the collective jackshaft attachment hardware, and the failure of maintenance personnel to detect the loose hardware during subsequent inspections.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA116
- Event ID
- 20130117X95034
- Case number
- ERA13LA116
- 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: b6171a9d5ea642c2e418a6b129fe3ac1b0785809973679985fd45fc0d29dbc7c; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:46:07.617Z.