ERA23LA228 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23LA228
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N62HT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 9 years (built 2014)
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the helicopter reported that while he was on approach to land, he attempted to slow his descent by pulling aft on the cyclic and increased the collective pitch. The low rotor rpm horn sounded as he was beginning to hover in ground effect, and he then began to fly forward slowly. At 20 knots, the low rotor rpm horn sounded again, and his altitude increased to 40 ft above ground level. The rotor speed did not recover, and the helicopter descended until it landed on an uneven berm. The helicopter then pitched forward, the main rotor blades impacted the ground, and the helicopter rolled onto its left side. The helicopter’s tail boom was substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate rotor rpm during landing which resulted in a premature landing on uneven ground and a subsequent rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23LA228
- Event ID
- 20230512149067
- Case number
- ERA23LA228
- 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: f82b5ae6225aa59dddaa34e75fff6e425e4335e4b8c93150c429456750896690; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:35:59.917Z.