CEN21LA339 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA339
- 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 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
- N983HA
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was performing an aerial application pass when he felt a “big tug” on the helicopter. The pilot realized he had struck a wire as the helicopter pitched up and started to slow. The helicopter flew about 150 yards when the pilot felt another “huge jerk” on the rear of the helicopter. The helicopter started to spin and rotated about 2-3 times before it impacted the ground and rolled over coming to rest on its left side. On exiting the helicopter, the pilot observed the wire wrapped around the helicopter. It had cut into the tail rotor gearbox “tearing it” off the helicopter. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operations. The pilot reported that prior to conducting the aerial application pass, he circled the field and did not observe any obstructions.
The pilot did not submit the National Transportation Safety Board Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident/Incident Report Form 6120.1.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to see and avoid a wire while maneuvering at low altitude during an aerial application flight, resulting in a collision with the wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA339
- Event ID
- 20210727103560
- Case number
- CEN21LA339
- 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: 4b21dc18993bec7ba6d3f2429d312d8509787a9bc9d5e7c1e615e4e1eb40f66d; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:20:02.925Z.