GAA18CA110 · Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2
D H Helicopter Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS) to St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA110
- 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
- N989HH
- Operator
- D H Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia, ILTo St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2015)
- 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
- 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 helicopter flight instructor reported that the student pilot was performing a normal approach to a hover with a quartering gusting headwind. He added that he "reminded" the student of the need to anticipate right pedal input as they applied power to terminate to a hover. Subsequently, the student pilot did not add sufficient "right pedal," and the helicopter immediately and very rapidly yawed to the left. The flight instructor said, "my controls," and attempted to recover, but the helicopter continued to spin counterclockwise, touched down, and then rolled onto its right side.
The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and main rotor system.
The flight instructor and student reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation system on the airport reported that, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 170° at 11 knots, gusting to 22 knots. The student pilot attempted to hover on runway 12L.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain yaw control while landing in gusting crosswind conditions and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA110
- Event ID
- 20180123X52142
- Case number
- GAA18CA110
- 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: f3229c4cb59f1b56a3d0a85769239ecb182ee6e4958e9050a8ca2832dad45067; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:20:50.497Z.