FTW93LA273 · Bell 206-L4
Bell 206-L4 · Accident: hard landing
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW93LA273
- 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 206-L4
- 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
- N2064J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Dual student › Control interference, attempted
- Dual student › Flare, excessive
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A PILOT RECEIVING INSTRUCTION FLARED EXCESSIVELY DURING AN AUTOROTATIVE LANDING FOLLOWING A SIMULATED ENGINE FAILURE DURING TAKEOFF. THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT ANNOUNCED THAT HE WAS TAKING THE CONTROLS TO LEVEL THE AIRCRAFT PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN. THERE WERE LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN THE JAPANESE PILOT RECEIVING INSTRUCTION AND THE INSTRUCTOR. THE PILOT RECEIVING INSTRUCTION FAILED TO RELINQUISH THE CONTROLS AND TRIED TO KEEP THE AIRCRAFT AIRBORNE WHILE THE INSTRUCTOR WAS TRYING TO LAND. THE LOW ROTOR RPM DURING TOUCHDOWN RESULTED IN DAMAGE TO THE TAILBOOM.
Probable cause
THE EXCESSIVE FLARE AND THE CONTROL INTERFERENCE BY THE PILOT UNDERGOING INSTRUCTION AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE CFI. FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THE INSTRUCTOR'S DIRECTIONS DUE TO HIS LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW93LA273
- Event ID
- 20001211X13413
- Case number
- FTW93LA273
- 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: d323ff7ee5c0230431762079438fda2a32721f78fa5490c6bd8a55fcc6601f66; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:34:46.490Z.