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WPR22LA146 · Robinson Helicopter Company R22 Beta II

6 Apr 2022 · Phoenix, AZ, United States

Quantum Helicopters Robinson Helicopter Company R22 Beta II · Accident: dynamic rollover while standing

From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
WPR22LA146
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 Beta II

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
N19VH
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZTo not recorded
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
Standing
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
  • Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
  • Personnel issues › Psychological
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot in the helicopter reported that, during a night solo training flight, the helicopter was on the ground with the throttle rolled on and full collective friction applied when he used a flashlight to view the Hobbs meter. Unbeknownst to him, the collective crept up, the helicopter rolled to the right and dynamically rolled over. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the horizontal stabilizer, and the main rotor system. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal flight operation.

Probable cause

The pilot’s failure to maintain helicopter control while on the ground when his attention was diverted, which resulted in a dynamic rollover.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR22LA146
Event ID
20220407104908
Case number
WPR22LA146
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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2022-04-07.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 027cee119f0fe6e5cebfbece7436ed64466a79788dfe82318c372bab00a5164c; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:06:47.040Z.