GAA15CA227 · Robinson Helicopter R44 UNDESIGNAT
Hawk Helicopters Robinson Helicopter R44 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Harbor Beach, MI to Sandusky, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA15CA227
- 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 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N8337Z
- Operator
- Hawk Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harbor Beach, MITo Sandusky, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 1996)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after landing at a remote off-airport site, he was informed by the site owner that the helicopter had collided with a wire during the landing approach. The pilot stated that "I didn't feel anything" when the owner of the field informed him that he struck the wires. The pilot reported that prior to departing on the next leg of his flight he performed a preflight inspection and found a "slight scratch on the tail rotor". The pilot stated that, "the helicopter sounded and felt okay" during the pre-takeoff run-up, and he departed for his home where the helicopter is stored. A post-accident inspection revealed that the helicopter sustained substantial damage to the tail rotor drive system.
The pilot stated that there were no pre-accident malfunctions or anomalies that would have prevented normal flight operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to monitor the landing environment while operating in a confined off-airport site resulting in a wire strike and substantial damage to the helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA15CA227
- Event ID
- 20150818X05655
- Case number
- GAA15CA227
- 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: cd2c31fdd7abf12ff4368b634ffb44905d18a3061314bfb2b248d366d39870ac; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:41:06.598Z.