GAA17CA406 · Robinson Helicopter R22 Beta
Valley Aviation Robinson Helicopter R22 Beta · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Wilkes Barre Wyoming Valley Airport (KWBW) to Wilkes Barre Wyoming Valley Airport (KWBW)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA406
- 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 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
- N2336J
- Operator
- Valley Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilkes Barre Wyoming Valley Airport (KWBW), Forty Fort, PATo Wilkes Barre Wyoming Valley Airport (KWBW), Forty Fort, PA
- 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
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
**This report was modified on July 17, 2020. Please see the docket for this accident to view the original report.**
The flight instructor reported that he was teaching his student to hover in the helicopter. The helicopter was in a 2-ft hover and began drifting to the left. The left rear skid got caught in a crack in the runway, and the helicopter rolled left. According to the flight instructor, the student pilot pulled up on the collective, and the instructor attempted to push the collective down; however, the student pilot reported that he was not aware the flight instructor had transferred control of the helicopter to him and was "tracking the progress of the flight instructor." A dynamic rollover occurred, and the helicopter rolled onto its left side.
The flight instructor reported that wind gusts may have been a factor in the accident.
According to the METAR that the flight instructor was monitoring about the time of the accident, the wind was from 210° at 8 knots. The METAR reported no wind gusts and no convective activity that day.
The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the tailboom and the main rotor system.
The pilots reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's delayed remedial action to maintain helicopter altitude during hover flight instruction, which resulted in the helicopter skid contacting a crack in the runway and a dynamic rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA406
- Event ID
- 20170711X95130
- Case number
- GAA17CA406
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a3814328fbe923bc8bf0f5444024cab7a00a09d6e2ad53d1f993c8f7d2fd2335; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:31:59.349Z.