GAA18LA131 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA II
Holy City Helicopters Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA II · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Charleston International Airport (CHS) to Charleston International Airport (CHS)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18LA131
- 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 II
- 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
- N337H
- Operator
- Holy City Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charleston International Airport (CHS), Charleston, SCTo Charleston International Airport (CHS), Charleston, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 1999)
- 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
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an instructional flight in the helicopter, the student pilot was on the controls. The flight instructor said the student had transitioned from a hover through effective transitional lift and established forward flight and then initiated a right turn. He added that, during the right turn, he and the student saw a small, white unmanned aerial system (UAS) about 10 ft in front of the helicopter at "eye level." The instructor took the flight controls and made a hard right and aft cyclic input. After the evasive maneuver, the helicopter had very little forward airspeed. The helicopter was about 40 ft above ground level as it began settling with power. The helicopter descended, and the tail rotor entered trees. The helicopter then developed a right spin, and the instructor rolled the throttle off to alleviate the spin and then increased the collective to try to cushion the landing. Subsequently, the helicopter impacted the ground and rolled over onto its right side.
A UAS was not recovered. It is likely that the instructor's abrupt maneuver led to the loss of forward airspeed and the helicopter's subsequent descent into trees, which resulted in the right spin from which the instructor could not recover before impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s abrupt evasive maneuver to avoid a reported unmanned aerial system, which resulted in a loss of forward airspeed and settling with power and a subsequent collision with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18LA131
- Event ID
- 20180214X61821
- Case number
- GAA18LA131
- 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: f5821557282619b393911cc351dd16f4b406926df4fd9da8405fd0a66aa59492; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:28:42.465Z.