ERA22LA290 · Schweizer 300 C
Schweizer 300 C · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From an unrecorded airport to Smith Reynolds Airport (INT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA290
- 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
Schweizer 300 C
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 300
- 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
- N2158T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Smith Reynolds Airport (INT), Winston Salem, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2008)
- 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 · 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
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 stated that he was at an enroute altitude of 1,500 ft mean sea level (500 ft above ground level), tuning a radio to the destination frequency, when he looked up there was a “drone hovering” in the path of the helicopter. He reported that it struck the main rotor disk at the 2 o’clock position and it “disintegrated.” The pilot evaluated the helicopter for vibrations or damage and elected to return to the departure airport, which was 3.5 miles away. He subsequently landed the helicopter without issue and during the postflight examination, he noted substantial damage to one of the main rotor blades. A sample was taken at the site of the main rotor blade damage and tested negative for bird DNA. A search for the unmanned aerial system was performed, however, no device was located. No Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) authorizations were requested for the area at the time of the accident. Additionally, no operational waivers had been filed with the Federal Aviation Administration for unmanned aerial system operations in the area at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The helicopter’s impact with a non-biological object, which resulted in substantial damage to a main rotor blade.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA290
- Event ID
- 20220628105374
- Case number
- ERA22LA290
- 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: e950554233918c91a5182fd22c8c3c53700cb94fcb4826830fdbe7b78a5c84b4; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:23:47.548Z.