WPR19LA002 · Robinson R44 II
Robinson R44 II · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS) to Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA002
- 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 II
- 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
- N611TH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS), Salinas, CATo Paso Robles Municipal Airport (PRB), Paso Robles, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2008)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, as the pilot turned the helicopter onto the crosswind leg of the traffic pattern, he noticed an “immediate low rotor speed,” a loss of engine power, and the helicopter yawed to the left. The pilot increased power; however, both the engine and rotor rpm continued to decrease rapidly. The pilot lowered the collective to regain and maintain rotor rpm and initiated an autorotation to an agricultural field. The helicopter landed hard, and a rotor blade severed the tail boom. The pilot stated that he experienced the same malfunctions twice during a flight about 3 months before the accident (low rotor speed and loss of engine power). During this flight, he was able to land the helicopter without incident. A postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed faulty wiring to the engine governor. Because of the faulty wiring, the governor was likely unable to sense rotor and engine rpm and make the necessary adjustments to keep rotor rpm constant, resulting in a loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power after takeoff due to faulty wiring to the engine governor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA002
- Event ID
- 20181008X31308
- Case number
- WPR19LA002
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-10-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2d3d021e9a824336d661f93627bc9ef3a5c777c706f141aed88b4d69f83b5fa7; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:18:57.005Z.