page_title: Robinson R44
section_title: Fuel tanks
hierarchical_section_title: Robinson R44 / Accidents and incidents / Fuel tanks
caption_attribution_description: Heli Air Robinson R44 Raven II (G-DRIV) arrives for the 2014 Royal International Air Tattoo, RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, England.
context_page_description: The Robinson R44 is a four-seat light helicopter produced by Robinson Helicopter Company since 1992. Based on the company's two-seat Robinson R22, the R44 features hydraulically assisted flight controls. It was first flown on 31 March 1990 and received FAA certification in December 1992, with the first delivery in February 1993.
  The R44 has been the world's best-selling general aviation helicopter every year since 1999. It is one of the most-produced GA aircraft of the 21st century, with 5,941 deliveries from 2001–2020.
context_section_description: The R44 was found to be prone to post-accident fires due to damage to the aluminum fuel tanks, allowing fuel to leak out. In 2009, the company began installing bladder-type fuel tanks in all new R44 helicopters. It also issued Service Bulletin SB-78 on 20 December 2010, requiring R44 helicopters with all-aluminum fuel tanks to be retrofitted with bladder-type tanks to "improve the R44's fuel system's resistance to a post-accident fuel leak." The company recommended that the change should be done as soon as practical, but no later than 31 December 2014. The compliance date was later moved to 30 April 2013.
  An accident investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in March 2013 found, after analyzing historical data, that a significantly higher proportion of R44 aircraft (12%) caught fire after crashing, compared to accidents involving other types of piston-engine helicopters (7%). Preliminary analysis by the ATSB of the NTSB's accident database found a similar statistic, with 15% of accidents in the US involving R44 helicopters having post-crash fires.
  Although the data did not consider which type of fuel tanks were fitted, the report mentioned four fatal accidents to the R44 fitted with bladder-type tanks, but as far as they knew, did not involve a post-accident fire. The ATSB recommended that the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) take further action to urge R44 owners to fit bladder-type tanks. The FAA, the governing body in the country of manufacture whose directives would normally be followed in other countries like Australia, had not mandated the retrofit; CASA therefore issued Australian-specific airworthiness directive AD/R44/23, grounding R44 aircraft on 30 April 2013 that had not yet been upgraded.
caption: Heli Air Robinson R44 Raven II arrives for the 2014 Royal International Air Tattoo, England
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D50", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2014:07:28 13:34:40", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "974", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4268", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:07:10 12:38:35", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:07:10 12:38:35", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "1", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "65", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2849", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1752", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "848", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "97", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}