WPR23LA145 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Elkhorn Aviation Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Elko, NV to Priv · Elko, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA145
- 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 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
- N462BA
- Operator
- Elkhorn Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elko, NVTo Priv · Elko, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 15 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was aerial animal control. The pilot reported that while flying at about 30kts and 50 ft above the ground and during a sweeping turn to avoid the effects of an estimated 30 kt tailwind at low altitude, a strong wind gust occurred in the path of the tailwind, which led to an uncontrolled descent rate. Unable to arrest the descent rate, the pilot executed a run-on landing. Environmental conditions weakened the pilot’s depth perception, which resulted in a tail strike that sheared off the tail boom. The main rotor blades contacted the ground and the helicopter rolled on its side, substantially damaging the fuselage and tail boom. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain sufficient altitude and airspeed in gusting tailwind conditions that resulted in an unrecoverable descent and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA145
- Event ID
- 20230403106998
- Case number
- WPR23LA145
- 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: ab6f777ec29e983a8fd3fdf28ea66b092c52444625bc5e027b7d6927de49a26c; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:28:48.723Z.