GAA16CA296 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
My Sky Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness while maneuvering
From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS) to St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA296
- 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
- N931SH
- Operator
- My Sky
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia/St. Louis, ILTo St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia/St. Louis, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 11 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 · 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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
According to the flight instructor, he was instructing his student in hovering flight operations. He reported that he instructed the student to execute a right pedal turn at a three foot hover. The instructor recalled that the student complied and during the turn, as the tail came into the wind, the helicopter started to weathervane, and the turn rate increased rapidly and did not subside until the helicopter impacted the ground. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both rotor systems.
The instructor reported that there were no mechanical anomalies or malfunctions with any portion of the helicopter that would prevent normal flight operations.
The instructor reported that the wind velocity at the time of the accident was 11 knots gusting to 16 knots.
Weathercock stability is defined as a region of loss of tail rotor effectiveness (120 degree - 240 degree tailwind) that will weathervane the helicopter, and if not prevented will result in a loss of helicopter control about the horizontal axis.
According to the Helicopter Flying Handbook (FAA 8083-21A):
Pilots who put themselves in situations where the combinations above occur should know that they are likely to encounter LTE. The key is to not put the helicopter in a compromising condition but if it does happen being educated enough to recognize the onset of LTE and be prepared to quickly react to it before the helicopter cannot be controlled.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's delayed remedial action and his failure to remain vigilant as the helicopter entered the weathercock stability region, in gusting wind conditions, resulting in loss of tail rotor effectiveness and ground impact.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA296
- Event ID
- 20160609X45739
- Case number
- GAA16CA296
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, coordinates. 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: 2e131fd2406e56905113ff4d26c6f65f6fc162612176ddc7735d59c36879af14; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:29:22.699Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure, destination. CPS (St. Louis Downtown Airport) is in Cahokia, Illinois; the record's own location line for this accident reads Cahokia/St. Louis, IL. CPS (St. Louis Downtown Airport) is in Cahokia, Illinois; the record's own location line for this accident reads Cahokia/St. Louis, IL.