CEN25LA063 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
So Fly Flight Training Academy Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: loss of control on ground while standing
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN25LA063
- 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 R22 BETA
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R22
- 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
- N3104U
- Operator
- So Fly Flight Training Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported having completed one flight around the airport traffic pattern with a flight instructor in preparation for the student pilot’s first solo flight. They then landed near a fixed base operator at the airport, and the flight instructor exited the helicopter. The student pilot took off and practiced hovering, hovering taxi, and flew three airport traffic patterns before returning to the grass area at the airport for additional hover and hover taxi practice. The windshield began to fog during the additional practice, so the student pilot landed the helicopter to turn the blower fan switch on, but did not engage the collective friction or reduce the engine power. The student pilot said he had never used the blower fan switch, and it took a couple of seconds to locate, during which time the helicopter rolled right, and the main rotor blades contacted the ground. The helicopter came to rest on its left side. The blower fan switch is located near the floor between the pilot’s legs. The helicopter was destroyed by its impact with the ground. The student pilot stated there was no mechanical malfunctions/failures of the helicopter.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain control of the helicopter while turning on the blower fan switch after landing that resulted in a dynamic rollover sequence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN25LA063
- Event ID
- 20241223199464
- Case number
- CEN25LA063
- 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: ccec5df560ea755893bef5d974de71e320eb46e09eb3df5d7f778ccade608ee0; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:33:54.539Z.