CEN22LA041 · Robinson Helicopter R22 Beta
Higher Ground Helicopters of Cincinnati Robinson Helicopter R22 Beta · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport (MGY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA041
- 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 R22 Beta
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R22
- 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
- N221HG
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport (MGY), Miamisburg, OHTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 29 years (built 1992)
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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 in flight
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot reported that, just after liftoff and in a low-altitude hover, the helicopter “swung” to the left. The student pilot reported that he “overcorrected” with right pedal and aft cyclic inputs. The helicopter began to spin, and the student pilot pulled up to keep from hitting the ground. The student pilot reported remembering hitting the ground and rolling the throttle off.
A security video showed that shortly after the helicopter lifted off into a low altitude hover it yawed left about 90° and descended before it moved aft and momentarily out of the camera’s view. When it reemerged, the helicopter was in a right spin and impacted the ramp in an upright attitude. The aft tail boom and tail rotor sustained substantial damage. The student pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
There was another small helicopter operating near the accident helicopter at the time of the accident, however it is unlikely that the rotor wash from the other helicopter would have precluded the student pilot’s ability to maintain control his helicopter.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain control of the helicopter during a low-altitude hover shortly after liftoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA041
- Event ID
- 20211119104280
- Case number
- CEN22LA041
- 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, 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: 4b047eeaa0006a7682b31135cc1ab35ddbd0c61c4192afc84296b714c34f11eb; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:46:20.335Z.