CEN19LA016 · Rotorway 162 F
Rotorway 162 F · Accident: flight instrument malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Butler Memorial Airport (BUM) to Butler Memorial Airport (BUM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA016
- 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
Rotorway 162 F
- Aircraft type
- Rotorway 162
- 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
- N162RF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Butler Memorial Airport (BUM), Butler, MOTo Butler Memorial Airport (BUM), Butler, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2015)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Flight instrument malfunction/failure
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that, about 10 minutes into the flight, he observed the main rotor rpm indicating unit drop to zero. The student confirmed that the engine rpm indications were "still normal" and then decided to execute an autorotation to an open field and lowered the collective. He stated that the helicopter was in a "steady glide" when he realized that it might impact a fence at his intended landing area in the field. The student applied aft cyclic to avoid the fence, which changed the helicopter’s glidepath; he then flared the helicopter and applied collective for the landing. During the landing, the right skid’s rear portion impacted terrain. The helicopter bounced, the student lost helicopter control, and the helicopter came to rest on its right side resulting in substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed an electrical short had occurred in the main rotor rpm indicating unit. Given the student reported that the engine rpm indications were “still normal," it is likely the helicopter was still functioning normally despite the loss of cockpit main rotor rpm indications.
Probable cause
The electrical short in the main rotor rpm indicating unit which provided an inaccurate indication to the student pilot and resulted in substantial damage during the precautionary autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA016
- Event ID
- 20181028X15852
- Case number
- CEN19LA016
- 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: 7c5474dfeacb40cb86b05e18ecced834190fa8e7f23203561bcd3781b23ab927; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:23:40.475Z.