CEN17LA290 · Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2
Texas Rotorwing Academy Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Beaumont Municipal Airport (BMT) to Beaumont Municipal Airport (BMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA290
- 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
Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2
- Aircraft type
- Guimbal CABRI G2
- 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
- N722TX
- Operator
- Texas Rotorwing Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Beaumont Municipal Airport (BMT), Beaumont, TXTo Beaumont Municipal Airport (BMT), Beaumont, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2016)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was practicing basic hovering skills under the supervision of the flight instructor. Due to the high air temperature and minimal airflow over the engine, the engine oil temperature had increased beyond the approved limits. The flight instructor decided to fly a low-altitude circuit along the perimeter of the airport to increase the airflow and cool the engine. The low-altitude circuit was performed at an altitude of about 100 ft above ground level and at a speed of about 60 knots. About halfway around the circuit, the oil temperature had returned to normal, and all other engine indications were normal at that time. However, during the turn at the southwest corner of the airport, which was about three-quarters of the way around the circuit, the helicopter began to lose altitude and would not respond to the flight instructor's control inputs. The flight instructor was unable to regain control, and the helicopter subsequently impacted the ground.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter did not reveal any anomalies consistent with a preimpact failure or malfunction. In addition, the flight instructor stated that there were no issues with the helicopter before the accident. Impact marks showed that the main rotor blades struck the ground before the landing skids, which was consistent with a bank angle of at least 40° at the time of the accident.
According to information that the helicopter manufacturer provided, the engine power and helicopter performance required to maintain altitude while maneuvering exceeded the power and performance available with the elevated density altitude conditions at the time of the accident flight, which resulted in a loss of altitude and an impact with the ground.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's low-altitude maneuvering, which exceeded the helicopter's performance capability in the high-density altitude conditions and resulted in a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA290
- Event ID
- 20170731X01416
- Case number
- CEN17LA290
- 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 local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e24ec8b83bc704500e6991d134f0398889fd714049edbca1b0e0ed4e3a752e82; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:37:29.422Z.