ERA16LA301 · Means Rober C ROTORWAY EXEC
Means Rober C ROTORWAY EXEC · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (IPJ) to Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (IPJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA301
- 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
Means Rober C ROTORWAY EXEC
- Aircraft type
- Means Rober ROTORWAY EXEC
- 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
- N48KM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (IPJ), Iron Station, NCTo Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (IPJ), Iron Station, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 27 years (built 1989)
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot said that, while in a hover during the fifth of a series of test flights, the experimental amateur-built helicopter pitched up and to the left and began transitioning rearward. He corrected with a full, right-forward cyclic input, yet the helicopter continued to transition to its rear until it struck a hangar. The helicopter continued inside the open hangar, collided with an airplane, and came to rest on its left side. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the cockpit, fuselage, and tail boom. The pilot reported the helicopter had performed "flawlessly" prior to the loss of control.
Before the test flights, the helicopter was configured with a ballast weight located on the right skid as prescribed in the pilot operating handbook for solo operation. Following the accident, the forward section of the right main landing gear tube, with the counterweight ballast attached, was found between where the helicopter hovered for the test, and where it came to rest inside the hangar. The tube's fracture surface features were consistent with overstress, and no indications of preexisting cracking or corrosion were observed. Given the location of the separated skid tube after the accident, it is likely that the skid contacted the ground while hovering, which resulted in an overstress separation of the skid tube and attached counterweight. This subsequently resulted in a sudden center of gravity (CG) shift outside the normal operating CG range and a loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate clearance from the ground while hovering, which resulted in separation of the forward section of the right skid tube with counterweight attached, a sudden center of gravity (CG) shift outside the normal operating range, and a subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA301
- Event ID
- 20160829X93702
- Case number
- ERA16LA301
- 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: 882fd66c75643f4ac4668b8447a9fba36fcc015de3fb4142ae271bb46ac955aa; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:12:35.176Z.