ERA21LA252 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Tunica Helicopters Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: hard landing
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA252
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 Helicopter Company 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
- N443SH
- Operator
- Tunica Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 2004)
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › 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 pilot was demonstrating emergency procedures and non-standard maneuvers in the helicopter to a new hire pilot and a company sales representative. After several simulated engine failures and autorotations, the pilot initiated a “quick stop” maneuver. The maneuver he performed did not comport with the published procedure in the manufacturer’s flight training guide, and in some cases contradicted the factory guidance in the pilot’s admittedly “slightly modified maneuver.”
The pilot initiated the maneuver about 40 ft. above the runway with about 40 knots airspeed. He reduced throttle, which was not directed, added left pedal, which was opposite of that directed, the engine and rotor rpm decayed, and the helicopter descended. The pilot said that he could not recover the engine or rotor rpm prior to the collision with the runway, which substantially damaged the helicopter. The 3 occupants of the helicopter egressed without injury.
The pilot stated there were no mechanical deficiencies with the helicopter that would have prevented normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s intentional departure from the procedures published in the manufacturer’s flight training guide, and his subsequent loss of engine rpm, rotor rpm, and aircraft control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA252
- Event ID
- 20210615103264
- Case number
- ERA21LA252
- 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: 7691afbf569b919f8d8580235d4b191ad13500e59af0fabc93a357bff346f71d; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:10:12.503Z.