GAA16CA213 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Hillsboro Aero Academy Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD) to Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA213
- 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
- N227SH
- Operator
- Hillsboro Aero Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD), Troutdale, ORTo Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD), Troutdale, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 10 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 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 · 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that he was practicing hover flight in a helicopter over soft grass at a height of 5 to 7 feet above the ground with a student pilot on his second training flight. The flight instructor further reported that he was controlling the collective and anti-torque pedals, and the student pilot was controlling the cyclic control. During the hover, the flight instructor reported that he became fixated on the manifold pressure gauge and did not notice that the helicopter was moving forward and descending. Subsequently, the helicopter's right skid impacted the ground and rolled over.
The main rotor drive shaft and tailboom were substantially damaged.
The flight instructor did not report any mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to monitor outside the helicopter during hover flight, which resulted in a collision with terrain and rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA213
- Event ID
- 20160505X05345
- Case number
- GAA16CA213
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-05-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e88d38ea7f94a3e7acf6b5bff39442d3b835c18e5e4d8b49418e7552bfada31d; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:21:05.147Z.