GAA18CA408 · Robinson R44 Undesignat
Cedar Ridge Aviation Robinson R44 Undesignat · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Rulo, NE to Rulo, NE
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA408
- 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 R44 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- 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
- N144DJ
- Operator
- Cedar Ridge Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rulo, NETo Rulo, NE
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2017)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 › 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
According to the helicopter pilot, he was performing a night agricultural flight. During takeoff from a platform located on top of the tender, his collective application was too aggressive, and during the ascent, the engine sputtered. The engine rpm and main rotor rpm decreased, and he tried to regain the rpm by lowering the collective. The helicopter was moving forward and descending, so he applied aft cyclic to arrest the forward movement, and he attempted to land. The left skid touched down in the soft dirt, and the pilot applied aft cyclic to prevent a nose-over, but the main rotor blades struck the tailboom. The helicopter rolled forward, and its nose spun left before the helicopter came to rest on its left side.
The helicopter sustained substantial damage the fuselage, tail rotor drive system, and skid tubes.
The pilot reported that the accident could have been prevented if he had not been in a hurry to complete the operation and that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper collective application, which resulted in low rotor rpm during the takeoff climb and a subsequent ground collision. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s self-induced pressure to complete the operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA408
- Event ID
- 20180710X75535
- Case number
- GAA18CA408
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-07-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fd0a180853479d222c57c3cfb297026626ee253513733102a3fde718a7533b31; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:48:41.956Z.