ERA14CA055 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Upper Limit Aviation Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA) to Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA055
- 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 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
- N44DQ
- Operator
- Upper Limit Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA), Tunica, MSTo Tunica Municipal Airport (UTA), Tunica, MS
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 control on ground
- 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 › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and the student pilot were practicing hovering autorotation maneuvers in a helicopter. Following a successful autorotation, and while the helicopter was on the ground with the collective pitch control fully lowered, the pilot told the student, "let's do another one." The flight instructor planned to remind the student pilot to center the anti-torque pedals, as some right pedal was still applied following the preceding autorotation. Before he could do so, the student pilot rapidly increased the engine throttle and the helicopter began yawing to the right. In order to keep the helicopter from sliding along the ground, the student forcefully increased the collective pitch. The helicopter lifted off the ground instantly and the flight instructor advised the student pilot, "I have controls." The student subsequently "locked up on the controls" and inadvertently applied full left anti-torque pedal as he attempted to brace himself. The helicopter yawed rapidly while in the air and the tail of the helicopter struck the ground, resulting in substantial damage. The flight instructor eventually regained control of the helicopter, reduced the throttle to idle, and performed a successful autorotation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter during the attempted takeoff, and the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the student pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA055
- Event ID
- 20131130X30448
- Case number
- ERA14CA055
- 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: 397aadb9db237e37e973b9aedda37a020464457e703278f5cb210f2db6440f0b; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:09:10.169Z.