Accidents and Incidents
The R22 has had 182 fatal accidents between December 1975 and June 2010 from a total of 1,230 incidents. In late 1981, the R22 became the first (and, to date, only) US helicopter to have its type certificate (FAA #H-10-WE) revoked by the Federal Aviation Administration due to the agency's conclusion that the main rotor blades tended to suffer catastrophic failure in flight. An early fatal accident was traced to a blade delamination, which was, in turn, traced to the Robinson rotor blade sub-contractor. The blades were assembled using special adhesives which were applied, then "set-up" overnight. The sub-contractor's factory had a mosquito problem, and a gasseous "mosquito bomb" interacted with the blade adhesive and degraded its efficacy which led to downstream delamination.
Read more about this topic: Robinson R22
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