Quicksilver Air Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II Raven II accident
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II Raven II · Accident: settling with power/vortex ring state while maneuvering
From Coldfoot Airport (CXF) to Coldfoot, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC14CA042
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 Raven 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
- N74713
- Operator
- Quicksilver Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coldfoot Airport (CXF), COLDFOOT, AKTo Coldfoot, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2006)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · hover
- 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
- Settling with power/vortex ring state
- 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 commercial helicopter pilot reported that the purpose of the flight was to transport two technicians to a remote site in an area of mountainous terrain. The pilot fueled the helicopter and flew approximately 30 minutes to a staging area. After loading the two passengers and their gear, he flew to the planned landing zone (LZ), in a narrow box-valley at about 2,550 feet MSL. The proposed LZ was evaluated while performing an out-of-ground-effect hover, but the pilot determined the LZ was unsuitable. A second LZ was evaluated using the same process and also found unsuitable.
While hovering out of ground effect, above a third potential LZ, the helicopter began to descend and the pilot added collective pitch to stop the descent. He said the low rotor annunciator horn then sounded and the helicopter continued to descend. In an attempt to avoid landing in an area of uneven terrain, the pilot said he opted to turn the helicopter to the right and downslope, while trying to override the engine governor to attain additional engine power. The helicopter's skids subsequently struck an area of uneven, down sloping terrain. During touchdown, the helicopter nosed down, pivoted to the left, and rolled onto its left side. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, tail boom and main rotor drive system. The pilot reported no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot characterized the down sloping wind conditions as light and variable.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate main rotor rpm while maneuvering at a low altitude, which resulted in an emergency landing on uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC14CA042
- Event ID
- 20140619X44316
- Case number
- ANC14CA042
- 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: df9eab0ea1785a529964c8915e3395c32224245394ca6ceaef4f1098d70f7857; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:06:56.006Z.