CEN24LA027 · Robinson Helicopter R44
Robinson Helicopter R44 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Garland/Dfw Heloplex Heliport (T57) to Rockwall Municipal Airport (F46)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA027
- 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
- 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
- N141CD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Garland/Dfw Heloplex Heliport (T57), Garland, TXTo Rockwall Municipal Airport (F46), Rockwall, TX
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2023)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in level flight, the flight instructor heard the engine and rotor rpm increase, followed by the high rotor rpm horn. The flight instructor reduced the throttle and subsequently observed another increase in engine and rotor rpm as if the throttle were fully open. The flight instructor again reduced the throttle, then observed rpm fluctuations and suspected they had a governor failure. He attempted overgripping the throttle but said it had limited effect in controlling the rpms. Concerned with the prospect that the engine could fail at any moment, the flight instructor initiated an autorotation as the engine fluctuations could not affect flight if they were unmarried to the rotor. The pilot selected a dirt field off the nose of the helicopter and began their descent. The field had been recently plowed, and recent rain showers made the field muddy. During the touchdown on the field, the skids dug into the dirt and the helicopter nosed forward, which resulted in the main rotor contacting the ground. The helicopter spun violently and then came to rest upright. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor, tail rotor, tail boom, and empennage.
The helicopter’s Engine Monitoring Unit (EMU)/Governor Controller was retained for further examination. The EMU/Governor Controller was a single unit that maintained the engine rpm in the governing range. Engine and rotor rpm were related as long as the rotor was not in a freewheel/autorotation condition. The EMU side of the unit just recorded data. Operational testing of the unit did not replicate the issue the flight crew experienced. No anomalies were found that would have precluded the unit’s normal operation.
Per the helicopter’s Pilot Operating Handbook, the emergency procedure for a governor failure was to grip the throttle firmly to override the governor and then switch the governor off before completing the flight using the manual throttle control. The flight instructor reported that, although he thought he attempted to disable the governor, post-flight he was not sure if they had accomplished it or not. Had the pilot followed the emergency checklist and disabled the governor, they would have likely maintained some throttle control during the emergency landing.
Probable cause
A malfunction of the helicopter’s Engine Monitoring Unit (EMU)/Governor Controller for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s failure to turn off the EMU/Governor Controller per the emergency checklist when the malfunction first occurred.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA027
- Event ID
- 20231030193320
- Case number
- CEN24LA027
- 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: d8877dd09db5f78f6919bf3c644f418603aa734cc22e7cbc9442e3a23e3721b4; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:15:37.827Z.