MIA95TA188 · McDonnell Douglas H369
McDonnell Douglas H369 · Accident during landing
From PFN to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95TA188
- 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
McDonnell Douglas H369
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas H369
- 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
- N129BC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PFNTo 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot-in-command (PIC) was demonstrating a 180-degree autorotation with turn to a certified flight instructor (CFI). He entered the maneuver at about 900 feet agl, and a flare was initiated at about 50 feet agl. Initial collective pitch application was made at about 10 feet agl, and cushioning collective pitch was made at about 2 to 3 feet agl. The helicopter touched down slightly nose high, slid forward, and started to turn to the right. The PIC applied aft cyclic to the left and heard a loud noise as the helicopter came to a stop. The CFI felt the cyclic being moved rearward, but made no attempt to take the flight controls from the PIC. Visual examination of the helicopter revealed the main rotor blades had collided with the tailboom assembly.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's improper aft application of cyclic control during a simulated touchdown autorotation on landing flare touchdown, resulting in the main rotor blades colliding with the tail boom assembly. Contributing to the accident was the improper supervision of the pilot-in-command by the check pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95TA188
- Event ID
- 20001207X04035
- Case number
- MIA95TA188
- 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: d5ef053bdcdd41fa71ca5280e427bebe5089067215e5747dbda0d2be80d639bd; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:35:01.948Z.