WPR16LA132 · Robinson Helicopter R44 UNDESIGNAT
Robinson Helicopter R44 UNDESIGNAT · Accident en route
From El Centro, CA (private airstrip) to El Centro, CA (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA132
- 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
- N8325X
- Operator
- Custom
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Centro, CA (private airstrip)To El Centro, CA (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1995)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter pilot was performing an agricultural flight when he felt an airframe vibration, which was followed by the main rotor low rpm warning and a loss of rotor rpm. He reduced collective and the vibration and warning horn stopped. As he began to maneuver for a landing, he increased the collective and leveled the skids and again felt an airframe vibration and noted a loss of rotor rpm. During the landing on sloping terrain, the right front skid toe dug into the soft dirt and the helicopter came to rest on its side, resulting in substantial damage. Examination of the helicopter revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation, and the reason for the vibration and loss of rotor rpm could not be determined based on the available information.
Probable cause
A loss of main rotor rpm and airframe vibration for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information, which resulted in a forced landing to sloping terrain and the helicopter rolling over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA132
- Event ID
- 20160628X23537
- Case number
- WPR16LA132
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-06-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5a6ab83b1b4260ceb2e6aea643fa3b7cace7277a25a5c2d576fa299989da2c23; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:34:20.563Z.