CEN22LA333 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA333
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- 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 R44 II
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- 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
- N442JE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 systems
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was maneuvering at low altitude to apply fungicide to a corn field. The collective flight control stiffened to a point that the pilot was unable to arrest the helicopter’s descent rate. The pilot attempted to use cyclic control to flare the helicopter and arrest the descent; however, the cyclic control was not responsive, and the helicopter impacted the ground. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the tail boom, fuselage, and main rotor system. The pilot stated that he suspected that the flight controls’ hydraulic assist system malfunctioned.
During the on-site inspection, no obvious anomalies were found with the flight control system. Flight control continuity was confirmed on site. All 3 servos (2 forward and 1 aft) passed bench functionality tests and the hydraulic pump, reservoir, and fluids were normal. The right forward servo had a slightly bent piston shaft, but still was fully functional. The bent shaft was consistent with impact damage. The spool drives of each servo were examined and exhibited signatures consistent with normal operation. An examination of the hydraulic system components revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operations. The reason for the reported flight control malfunction could not be determined.
Probable cause
The malfunction of the flight controls for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA333
- Event ID
- 20220725105560
- Case number
- CEN22LA333
- 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: abf8219d7e45a6789ce9a6580b4095ad3a8544f81f5e22832419ae15fdea8bc4; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:30:13.132Z.