ERA21FA200 · Robinson Helicopter R44
Kritter Cropdusting Robinson Helicopter R44 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Wingate, NC to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21FA200
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 Helicopter 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
- N4528T
- Operator
- Kritter Cropdusting
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wingate, NCTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 13 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the helicopter was conducting an aerial application when the accident occurred. Data recovered from an onboard GPS device showed that the helicopter took off, flew to the field, made two full passes and had turned back to begin a third. During the first two passes, the track showed a climb and descent near a power line that spanned the field; however, on the third and final pass, the climb and descent occurred immediately after the final turn and before the power line. The track also showed that, before the data ended, the helicopter was descending toward the power lines in the vicinity of where the wreckage ultimately came to rest. Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed that the tip portion of one of the fractured tail rotor blades exhibited impact scars consistent with a wire strike as well as impact with the tail rotor guard. One tail rotor blade tip was not found. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of preimpact failures or damage that would have precluded normal operation of the helicopter. It is likely that the helicopter’s tail rotor struck the power line, separating a portion of the tail rotor blades. The tail rotor imbalance resulted in the separation of the tail rotor gearbox and empennage, and a nose-down tendency from the forward center of gravity shift, consistent with the cockpit crushing at ground impact. Given the lack of powered impact signatures on the main rotor blades, it is possible that the pilot reduced the throttle and collective control, resulting in reduced main rotor power, when he experienced a reduced or complete loss of directional control authority after the tail rotor struck the power line. The sun’s elevation at the time of the accident was high enough that it would likely not have been a factor in the pilot’s ability to detect the power line in the field. Given the available information, the pilot likely prematurely descended the helicopter while overflying the power line, which resulted in the subsequent wire strike.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from a power line during a low-level aerial application flight, resulting in tail rotor impact with the power line, a loss of control, and subsequent impact with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21FA200
- Event ID
- 20210502103009
- Case number
- ERA21FA200
- 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, cause areas. 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: 9f100f30629c5a1f42e1758677e4439b69bc88cc75514ca21dd4a00ce84857f4; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:27:56.952Z.