FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

GAA19CA279 · Guimbal CABRI G2

23 May 2019 · St. Louis, IL, United States

D H Helicopter Guimbal CABRI G2 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing

From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS) to St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS)

Report a problem

Event

NTSB case
GAA19CA279
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

Guimbal CABRI G2

Aircraft type
Guimbal CABRI
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
N369PA
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), St Louis, ILTo St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), St. Louis, IL
Aircraft age
About 4 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
Landing · aborted after touchdown
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 on ground
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
  • Environmental issues › Physical environment
  • 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

The flight instructor reported that, during a training flight in the helicopter, he briefed the student pilot on the procedures required to land with a simulated stuck left pedal. The student began a descent to enter a shallower-than-normal glidepath to the runway surface, and he completed his final checks for the maneuver and continued the approach. During the approach the flight instructor directed the student pilot to use "throttle manipulation to control the yaw caused by a fixed input on the anti-torque system." Upon contacting the runway, the helicopter veered left, and the instructor chose to abort the landing. As the helicopter lifted off, it began to rapidly yaw left while drifting left of the runway. Recognizing that the helicopter was in a spin, they attempted to correct by leveling the helicopter long enough to regain tail rotor authority. The helicopter's left skid impacted mud on the left side of the runway, and the helicopter rolled onto its left side. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor, fuselage, and tailboom. The instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation. A manufacturer's service letter, SL 19-002 A, stated, "During in-flight tail rotor control failure simulation, pilots should never use the twist grip to control yaw." Therefore, the flight instructor's direction to the student to use the throttle to correct the yaw was incorrect and led to ground impact and a dynamic rollover.

Probable cause

The flight instructor's improper emergency procedure instruction to the student pilot, which resulted in the student improperly using the throttle to correct the loss of yaw control, which resulted in ground impact and a dynamic rollover.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record GAA19CA279
Event ID
20190524X15229
Case number
GAA19CA279
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, coordinates. 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: 04dc76e48988580796f913263e508c84872e20eb6c1d3809a0a17aa6a12f9eb7; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:03:16.178Z.