CEN17LA210 · Robinson Helicopter Company R22
Robinson Helicopter Company R22 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW) to Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA210
- 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
- 0
- 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 Company R22
- 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
- N601HA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW), Kenosha, WITo Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW), Kenosha, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1981)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After a local flight, the commercial pilot was attempting to land the helicopter on a wooden dolly. Witnesses observed the helicopter near the ground, then it quickly climbed to 25 ft above ground level. While airborne, the helicopter wobbled and appeared unstable, then descended and impacted the ramp on its right side. Witnesses also reported that a piece of the helicopter separated during the accident sequence, which likely occurred when a tail rotor blade struck the ground. Impact marks from the tail rotor blades were found in the pavement near the main wreckage. The damage to the outboard edge of the tail rotor blade tip indicated that the helicopter was mostly upright when the blade tip contacted the ground and separated.
A postaccident examination of the accident site and wreckage revealed yellow paint transfer from the wooden landing dolly on the front right side of the helicopter. The dolly was found about 50 ft from the helicopter on the ramp. Examination of the engine and airframe did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. A postaccident engine test run was performed with no anomalies noted.
It is likely that, while attempting to land on the dolly, the pilot lost control of the helicopter, which descended and impacted the landing dolly and the ground.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of helicopter control during landing to a dolly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA210
- Event ID
- 20170605X85904
- Case number
- CEN17LA210
- 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: d44f3db42a855532d0975df2565cfd8d1914af260730d1fbead776385d856bcc; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:22:26.094Z.