CEN14CA142 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness while maneuvering
From Bonham, TX to Bonham, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14CA142
- 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
- N494SH
- Operator
- GoCopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bonham, TXTo Bonham, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 9 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
- 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 tail rotor effectiveness
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot flew locally about 40 minutes on an aerial observation flight. He reported that the helicopter was positioned upwind when he began flying crosswind over a tree line and it descend between 10 to 15 feet above the ground. The pilot stopped the helicopter's descent and forward speed to make a left pedal turn. While in a stabilized and "stationary" downwind hover for about two to three seconds, the helicopter suddenly pitched forward without cyclic input and it started to move forward and descend. For about one to two seconds the helicopter continued to accelerate forward while losing more altitude. The pilot was unable to stop the helicopter's forward movement with neither full aft cyclic nor the descent by adding power to the engine's red line. He decided to make a right turn into the wind with right pedal and cyclic where further altitude was lost. The front of the right skid came in contact with the ground and the helicopter settled onto its right side after the main rotor struck the ground. The helicopter sustained substantial tail boom damage. The pilot indicated that the helicopter was within weight and balance limits and that there was no mechanical malfunctions during the accident flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate recovery from a loss of tail rotor effectiveness during a low altitude downwind hover in a gusty wind condition resulting in the helicopter contacting the ground and rolling over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14CA142
- Event ID
- 20140218X50005
- Case number
- CEN14CA142
- 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: 18d1e8f922bf935317dfd36466a0b2f1a4c3bfc58de9849a8905086069ac3189; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:19:33.282Z.