ERA22LA140 · Robinson Helicopter Company R22
Fly For Fun Aircraft Robinson Helicopter Company R22 · Accident: dynamic rollover while maneuvering
From Martin State Airport (MTN) to Fallston Airport (W42)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA140
- 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 R22
- 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
- N786SH
- Operator
- Fly For Fun Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Martin State Airport (MTN), Baltimore, MDTo Fallston Airport (W42), Fallston, MD
- Aircraft age
- About 18 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
- 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and his student were performing maneuvers as part of a flight lesson. About 40 minutes into the flight, while attempting a left pedal turn, the helicopter descended just enough to touch the left rear skid, which surprised the student, who then added right lateral cyclic control. The helicopter’s right skid dug in the ground, and the helicopter rolled over on to its right side, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage and main rotor blades. The helicopter manufacturer’s flight maneuvers guide advised that a 5-foot hover should be used for all taxi and hover operations, and a minimum 5-foot hover was the policy of the flight school. After the accident, the flight school had discussions with all their helicopter instructors to emphasize the need to maintain proper height above the ground, the need to closely guard the controls while instructing, and the need for improved awareness of the capabilities and experience of the students.
Probable cause
The student pilot's unstabilized hover, which resulted in ground contact and a dynamic rollover. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the student and his delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA140
- Event ID
- 20220301104715
- Case number
- ERA22LA140
- 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: 6fcdf80ec0de310b85b6cce80c6fcc3e745f4f42813a6d97992f3a0204d9871b; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:00:26.874Z.