GAA20CA002 · Robinson R44
Civic Helicopter Robinson R44 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA20CA002
- 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
- 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
- N4050X
- Operator
- Civic Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CA
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2019)
- 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
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 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 she provided takeoff and landing training from and to a helicopter landing platform. During landing, the student pilot had control of the collective and the antitorque pedals, and the instructor maintained control of the cyclic. The instructor added that, during landing on the platform, "the student lowered the collective suddenly, and also pulled back up (on the collective) suddenly." Additionally, the student grabbed the cyclic and pulled aft when he increased the collective. The helicopter bounced on the platform and tilted backward. The helicopter rolled onto its right side, the instructor closed the throttle, and the main rotor blades struck the ground. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main and tail rotor drive systems and the fuselage. The instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's incorrect collective and cyclic applications during landing and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action, which resulted in a roll-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA20CA002
- Event ID
- 20191007X23255
- Case number
- GAA20CA002
- 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: 0d8678a8844fca6c756d4adc07fdd57643f195d6dad27dfefb105ac46251ad8b; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:18:39.169Z.