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Atlas / NTSB / ATL91LA184

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ATL91LA184

1991-09-30 ROSSVILLE, Tennessee, United States Airport · 54M Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N42LF

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

ROBINSON HELICOPTER R44 II

TCDS

H11NM · ROBINSON HELICOPTER CO

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A4FA46

Registrant of record

ROBINSON HELICOPTER CO

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER AS A RESULT OF CARBURETOR ICING.

Factual narrative

THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA) INSPECTOR STATED THAT THE HOME BUILT AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH A TREE OFF THE APPROACH END OF RUNWAY 36 AT THE SMALL SOD AIRPORT. THE AIRCRAFT THEN IMPACTED THE TERRAIN IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE, AND CAME TO REST ABOUT 600 FEET SHORT OF THE APPROACH END OF RUNWAY 36. THE INSPECTOR STATED THAT THE ENGINE DID NOT APPEAR TO BE RUNNING AT THE TIME OF IMPACT, AND THE CARBURETOR HEAT WAS IN THE ON POSITION. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED NO MALFUNCTION. THE TEMPERATURE AND DEW POINT IN THE AREA AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WERE CONDUCIVE TO EXTREME CARBURETOR ICING AT CRUISE AND CLIMB POWER SETTINGS. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1991_ATL91LA184.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗