ERA25LA259 · Robbins C/Robbins J ROTORWAY EXEC 162F
Robbins C/Robbins J ROTORWAY EXEC 162F · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) while maneuvering
From Robbins Farm Airport (0PA3) to an unrecorded destination
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
- ERA25LA259
- 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
Robbins C/Robbins J ROTORWAY EXEC 162F
- Aircraft type
- Robbins C/robbins ROTORWAY EXEC 162F
- 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
- N31XR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Robbins Farm Airport (0PA3), Troy, PATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2007)
- 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
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, about 20 minutes into a local flight, he observed smoke entering the cockpit of the experimental amateur-built helicopter while he was executing a turn. The pilot initiated a precautionary autorotation to a hayfield. After landing, he observed flames emanating from the lower aft left side of the fuselage, which quickly intensified. The pilot exited the helicopter and contacted emergency services. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector who responded to the accident site reported that the helicopter had been largely consumed by the fire. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the entire fuel system had been destroyed. A review of maintenance records indicated that both fuel lines to the fuel pumps had been replaced 13 flight hours before the accident due to a low fuel pressure anomaly. Due to the extent of the fire damage, the origin of the fire could not be determined.
Probable cause
An in-flight fire for reasons that could not be determined due to the extent of fire damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA259
- Event ID
- 20250707200465
- Case number
- ERA25LA259
- 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: 2a06ba3e41cbdd9d6e32128019ee350a5b2ada8aed6f712d73aabe1150fc1cf4; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:02:41.536Z.