WPR16LA168 · Robinson R44 II
Robinson R44 II · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA) to Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA168
- 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 R44 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
- N74805
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), Kailua/Kona, HITo Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), Kailua/Kona, HI
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 control on ground
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During aninstructional flight in the helicopter, the pilot under instruction set up for anapproach and landing to a flat and smooth gravel road. Once the skids were on the ground, the pilot under instruction lowered the collective toward the FULL DOWN position. The helicopter then began to rock in a fore and aft motion. The flight instructor took the controls as the intensity of the rocking increased; the helicopter then ascended in uncontrollable flight. The flight instructor subsequently landed the helicopter on the gravel road; it came to rest upright about 20 to 30 ft and at a little more than a 45° angle from the initial touchdown point. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. Postaccident examination of the helicopterrevealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Thus, the reason for the reported on-ground upset could not be determined.
Probable cause
An on-ground upset for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA168
- Event ID
- 20160826X71555
- Case number
- WPR16LA168
- 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: 762af29cd0b8407940aae178e33fd2f473d58eb293f52f17193be80553023f9d; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:11:48.246Z.