CEN18CA294 · Robinson R22 BETA
Concho Aviation Robinson R22 BETA · Accident while standing
From Sterling City, TX to Sterling City, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18CA294
- 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
- N410MM
- Operator
- Concho Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sterling City, TXTo Sterling City, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2004)
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
The pilot exited the helicopter with the engine set to idle power. Subsequently, the collective/throttle increased due to the engine vibrations, and the helicopter became light on the skids. The helicopter rocked back on the tail, which separated the tail rotor from the helicopter and damaged the main rotor blades. The manufacturer had previously issued a safety notice, which stated to never exit the helicopter unattended with the engine running and the rotors turning because the collective can "creep up, increasing both pitch and throttle, allowing the helicopter to lift off or roll out of control," as occurred in this accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to exit the helicopter without shutting down the engine, which allowed the collective/throttle to increase and resulted in a loss of control of the unattended helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18CA294
- Event ID
- 20180725X25209
- Case number
- CEN18CA294
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 09d6f7ba4685131bde66175846d6d062ac24dcf3b5068e351c38e682d63b7616; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:58:41.727Z.