CEN18LA251 · Robinson R22 BETA
Veracity Aviation Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU) to Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA251
- 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 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
- N830J
- Operator
- Veracity Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU), Georgetown, TXTo Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU), Georgetown, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 engine power (partial)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and commercial pilot were about to make the base leg turn for a local instructional flight when the low rotor rpm horn activated. The flight instructor got on the flight controls with the pilot, immediately reduced the collective, and applied throttle. The flight instructor heard the low rotor rpm horn stop and observed the low rotor rpm light extinguish; he visually confirmed the engine and rotor rpm were about 97%. The flight instructor began the base leg turn and heard the low rotor rpm horn again. After noticing that the engine and rotor rpm were decaying, the flight instructor felt that the engine was not capable of maintaining the rotor rpm within safe operating limits and entered an autorotation. The helicopter touched down with a small amount of forward airspeed in a yard at a private residence, which resulted in substantial damage to the tailboom and the vertical stabilizer.
A postaccident examination of the engine found no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Although the weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive for the formation of carburetor icing at glide and cruise power, the helicopter was equipped with a carburetor heat assist device. The helicopter had an adequate amount of fuel on board at the time of the accident. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information, which resulted in an impact with terrain during the subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA251
- Event ID
- 20180702X73259
- Case number
- CEN18LA251
- 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: 8c4ef4d2e135e65b551a7f1e0cc457c3bfc5c61acee30c6947380a3f6c957c0f; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:44:03.220Z.