WPR13LA295 · Robinson Helicopter R44 Astro
Robinson Helicopter R44 Astro · Accident: loss of lift while maneuvering
From Brigham City Regional Airport (BMC) to Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA295
- 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 R44 Astro
- 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
- N7187B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brigham City Regional Airport (BMC), Brigham City, UTTo Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that, upon entering the mouth of a canyon, he slowed the helicopter to between 70 and 75 knots because he had experienced turbulence going through the canyon with his instructor the day before the accident. About halfway through the canyon, the helicopter dropped about 100 feet, and the main rotor rpm was between 80 and 85 percent. He lowered the collective and rolled on the throttle to regain rotor rpm and then turned toward a field to set up for a precautionary landing. During the turn, the main rotor rpm rose to about 90 percent, but, after leveling out, the pilot observed the rpm decrease again to between 80 and 85 percent. The pilot stated that, after he cleared a set of wires and landed the helicopter in the field, the front skid caught on something, and the helicopter tipped over on its left side, which resulted in substantial damage. The calculated density altitude at the time of the accident was 8,830 feet, which could have reduced the available engine torque and, subsequently, the rotor rpm. A postaccident examination of the helicopter's engine and airframe revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain rotor rpm while traversing a canyon in high-density altitude and gusting wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA295
- Event ID
- 20130628X02349
- Case number
- WPR13LA295
- 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 2013-06-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 24db6d4cd8ae07a2cb8fdb036d9c1daa4eab86b02fd2ccae4eb6746f92d134f7; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:01:22.284Z.