MIA95LA128 · Robinson R22 BETA
Ace Helicopter Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: hard landing
From Miami Executive Airport (TMB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95LA128
- 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
Robinson 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
- N2321X
- Operator
- Ace Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami Executive Airport (TMB)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Hard landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Flight manuals, not followed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE LESSON WAS TO PREPARE THE STUDENT FOR A SCHEDULED CHECK RIDE. WHILE PERFORMING PRACTICE AUTOROTATIVE LANDINGS WITH POWER RECOVERY, THE CFI ALLOWED THE STUDENT TO INITIATE THE FLARE AT 100 FEET INSTEAD OF 40 FEET AS INDICATED IN THE FAA APPROVED PILOT'S OPERATING HANDBOOK (POH). ALSO, THE CFI ALLOWED THE STUDENT TO INITIATE THE POWER RECOVERY AT 40 FEET INSTEAD OF 8-10 FEET AS ALSO INDICATED IN THE POH. THE HELICOPTER LANDED HARD AND THE MAIN ROTOR BLADES SEVERED A SECTION OF THE TAILBOOM. THE CFI STATED THAT THERE WAS NO AIRFRAME PREIMPACT FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE CFI FOR ALLOWING THE STUDENT TO INITIATE INITIAL FLARE AND POWER RECOVERY AT 100 FEET INSTEAD OF 40 FEET AND 40 FEET INSTEAD OF 8-10 FEET RESPECTIVELY. ADDITIONALLY, FAILURE OF THE CFI TO COMPLY WITH THE FAA APPROVED FLIGHT MANUALS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95LA128
- Event ID
- 20001207X03507
- Case number
- MIA95LA128
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 6fa312871d9a0fd239336882c64020acf8c391f98fde7142792a7280ba1714e8; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:58:41.122Z.