WPR17LA211 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Revolution Aviation Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: hard landing during autorotation
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA211
- 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
- N7514S
- Operator
- Revolution Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2002)
- 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
- Autorotation
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the final phase of a crosswind landing approach, the solo student pilot felt the helicopter shudder and heard the low rotor rpm horn sound. Instead of applying corrective control inputs, he immediately initiated an autorotation. He did not raise the collective control during the flare, as required, and the helicopter then landed hard and rolled over.
Postaccident examination did not reveal any preimpact anomalies with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation, and the engine appeared to be operating at the time of ground impact.
Airframe vibration during the final phase of a landing approach is not an unusual phenomenon, and a low rotor rpm warning under high-load conditions (such as when landing with a crosswind) can also occur if rotor speed and engine power are not properly managed. The pilot improperly decided to initiate an autorotation instead of applying corrective control inputs to address the vibrations and improperly performed the landing flare.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain rotor rpm during the crosswind landing approach and his subsequent improper decision to initiate an autorotation instead of applying corrective control inputs after the helicopter experienced normal airframe vibration. Also causal was his failure to raise the collective during the landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA211
- Event ID
- 20170920X73238
- Case number
- WPR17LA211
- 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: 7acbb82c73e96d645956d76d241479af2790fc3d04177822d2f44e59c1a67030; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:52:07.640Z.