WPR13CA155 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Guidance Helicopters Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: hard landing
From Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC) to Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13CA155
- 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
- N223G
- Operator
- Guidance Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC), Prescott, AZTo Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC), Prescott, AZ
- 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
- Landing
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During descent for an off-airport pinnacle landing, the helicopter encountered a downdraft about 75 to 100 feet above ground level (agl), and the pilot receiving instruction increased collective input. The flight instructor advised the pilot receiving instruction to be less aggressive using the collective as the flight continued to the landing area. As the helicopter descended through about 10 to 25 feet agl, it encountered a second downdraft, and the pilot receiving instruction increased collective again, which was followed by a decrease in rotor rpm. The flight instructor took control of the helicopter as it contacted the ground and then became airborne again. The helicopter yawed to the right and landed upright on sloping terrain. Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed that the tailboom was substantially damaged just aft of the fuselage attach point. The pilots reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction’s failure to maintain rotor rpm during the pinnacle landing. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13CA155
- Event ID
- 20130319X81018
- Case number
- WPR13CA155
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-03-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: adb28af6cba45f3323d0c9d3c70f29117346cad7faa40d47d6067b7af61c643b; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:08:15.667Z.