CEN22LA326 · Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2
Ideal Aviation Illinois Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2 · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness during landing
From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS) to St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA326
- 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
Helicopteres Guimbal CABRI G2
- Aircraft type
- Guimbal CABRI G2
- 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
- N457PA
- Operator
- Ideal Aviation Illinois
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia, ILTo St Louis Downtown Airport (CPS), Cahokia, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2019)
- 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
- Landing
- 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 tail rotor effectiveness
- 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
- 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 student pilot reported that the purpose of the flight was to practice off-airport landings. On the fourth and final landing, they set up a steep approach with the student pilot on the flight controls. The helicopter was above the effective translational lift (ETL) airspeed as they descended through 100 ft above ground level (agl) in a stabilized descent. The helicopter then started to yaw left and the flight instructor took the controls. As the spin rate increased, the flight instructor’s efforts to regain control were not successful. He then realized the helicopter was spinning out of control. He lowered the collective and the spin rate slowed as the helicopter contacted the ground. The flight instructor shut down the engine and both pilots exited the helicopter. The helicopter’s fuselage sustained substantial damage. The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable cause
Loss of tail rotor effectiveness resulting in an in-flight loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA326
- Event ID
- 20220719105522
- Case number
- CEN22LA326
- 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: 3a136d9d63735a1403ee146e13a08028b084d3274ff17d0d1c8c7ada9acb3933; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:28:44.866Z.