ERA17CA187 · Robinson R22 BETA
Heliflights Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: dynamic rollover while maneuvering
From Linden Airport (LDJ) to Linden Airport (LDJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17CA187
- 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 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
- N2322Z
- Operator
- Heliflights
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Linden Airport (LDJ), Linden, NJTo Linden Airport (LDJ), Linden, NJ
- Aircraft age
- About 25 years (built 1992)
- 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter flight instructor stated that he was providing the student pilot with his first introductory flight in a helicopter. The flight instructor was holding the dual controls lightly while the student pilot practiced hovering. The helicopter was hovering over a concrete area on the airport and had drifted over grass. The flight instructor then told the student pilot to hover back over the concrete. As the helicopter was proceeding back to the concrete, the student pilot made an abrupt movement on the cyclic to the right, and the right skid contacted an unknown object, which caused a dynamic roll-over. The student pilot's written account was similar, except he stated that the flight instructor had taken control of the helicopter and was hovering toward the concrete when a sudden downward push of wind caused a forceful movement to the right. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the right skid had contacted the ground, which resulted in a dynamic rollover and substantial damage to the main rotor blades and fuselage. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions were noted nor did the pilots report any. The wind at the airport was recorded as calm about the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain helicopter control while hovering, which resulted in skid contact with the ground and a dynamic roll-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17CA187
- Event ID
- 20170522X83513
- Case number
- ERA17CA187
- 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: a97fbf4f9648dc08444fbda23a31ff0e779dfb9726af7b35157593d10f8a5ac1; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:18:23.039Z.