WPR14CA227 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Guidance Helicopters Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC) to Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA227
- 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
- About 13 years (built 2001)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after departure, the commercial pilot undergoing instruction leveled the helicopter for cruise at an altitude of 300 feet above ground level, in compliance with the flight school's departure procedures. He reached down to the instrument panel pedestal with the intention of pulling the cyclic right trim knob; however, the flight instructor observed him instead reach for the adjacent engine fuel mixture control. The instructor yelled for him to stop, and attempted to swat his hand clear, however, the pilot then pulled the control and the engine lost all power. The flight instructor initiated an autorotation while simultaneously pushing the mixture control back down. The engine did not restart, and the helicopter landed hard, with the main rotor blades severing the tailboom. The high density altitude conditions, along with the helicopter's altitude and airspeed at the time of power loss, meant that it was operating on the edge of the "Avoid Operation" area of the height-velocity performance envelope. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The inadvertent activation of the engine's mixture control during cruise flight by the pilot undergoing instruction, which resulted in a total loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's inadequate monitoring of the pilot's actions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA227
- Event ID
- 20140604X23226
- Case number
- WPR14CA227
- 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: 1cb7befaa4d939e986c9f44ff35d33b203231c6c5e326ee901ce396781aa887a; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:44:30.547Z.