WPR22LA363 · Robinson Helicopter R44 Cadet
Robinson Helicopter R44 Cadet · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during landing
From Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA363
- 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 R44 Cadet
- 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
- N297SU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC), Cedar City, UTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2017)
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and student had just completed a series of uneventful practice maneuvers and decided to perform off-airport landings at a location that the instructor had used before. After a series of reconnaissance orbits, low passes, and power checks over the landing area and, with the helicopter operating normally, the instructor decided to proceed with a landing.
The student was maneuvering at low altitude while attempting to land when they felt a jolt, and the helicopter yawed to the left. The instructor took over the controls, and attempted to maneuver away from trees but the helicopter began to vibrate and yawed aggressively to the left with an accompanying reduction in engine speed. The helicopter began to descend with the low rotor rpm horn sounding, and the instructor performed an autorotation, during which the main rotor blade cut through the tail.
Postaccident examination revealed a damaged engine intake valve that would have resulted in a partial loss of engine power. The helicopter’s response during the event was consistent with a loss of engine power, although due to the altitude and environmental conditions, the helicopter was being operated at the upper limits of its performance envelope.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to a damaged cylinder intake valve and subsequent collision with terrain during an autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA363
- Event ID
- 20221003106041
- Case number
- WPR22LA363
- 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: be8586135cda965c9b46245888b7f7b1d1abdd090fa0e96e6968cb0f45370153; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:09:32.186Z.