MIA95LA205 · Bell 206B
Bell 206B · Accident: hard landing en route
From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF) to Page Field (FMY)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95LA205
- 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
Bell 206B
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- N193JB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), OPA LOCKA, FLTo Page Field (FMY), Fort Myers, FL
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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 › Cyclic, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Flare, low
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Immokalee, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he was in cruise flight at 500 feet agl when he observed the engine oil temperature gage just short of the red line. A short time later he heard a noise described as a 'pop'. He entered a power-on autorotaton to make a precautionary landing straight ahead to an open area, and planned to terminate at a hover. The engine out warning light was not illuminated, the engine out audio did not activate, and the remaining engine instruments appeared to be normal. The pilot initiated a deceleration at 50 to 60 feet, applied initial collective pitch at about 15 feet while increasing power and leveling the helicopter. The landing area was unsuitable and the N2 was observed decreasing. He applied aft cyclic, and the ventral fin collided with the ground. The helicopter rocked forward and the main rotor blades collided with the tailboom. Examination of the helicopter revealed a red shop rag was caught in the oil cooler fan. A rigging check was conducted and no deficiencies were noted. The engine was removed and placed in an engine test cell. The engine started, run at ground idle, and accelerated to takeoff power.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper use of the cyclic during a power-on autorotative landing (low flare), resulting in the ventral fin colliding with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95LA205
- Event ID
- 20001207X04330
- Case number
- MIA95LA205
- 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: 1103899aed7b35ee4fd9fcede3d9b28e59b93628dcf4d4e458a76789b69fd6df; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:25:28.399Z.