MIA00LA005 · Robinson R-22
Robinson R-22 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE) to Miami Seaplane Base (X44)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA005
- 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 R-22
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R-22
- 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
- N83574
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), FT. LAUDERDALE, FLTo Miami Seaplane Base (X44), WATSON ISLAND, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Unknown › Maintenance, adjustment, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After about 1 hour of flight at about 200 feet offshore, the helicopter was observed to descend from about 500 feet agl, to about 200 feet agl, and head directly toward the beach. Once overhead the beach, the pilot stated the cylinder head and oil temperature indications started rising rapidly, and he looked for a place to autorotate. Finding no suitable area due to the density of bathers and losing power, the pilot elected to ditch offshore in about 8 feet of water. Post crash test run of the engine revealed normal operation except that the magneto timing had been adjusted as far advanced as possible. Factory post crash analysis of the main rotor clutch and shaft revealed the clutch had sustained two severe overtorque events, most likely as a result of two or more main rotor blade strikes during the accident.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power while maneuvering due to improper ignition timing by unknown person(s) resulting in an emergency descent and collision with the water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA005
- Event ID
- 20001212X20008
- Case number
- MIA00LA005
- 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: b0850f2a80d80f4a77c6f9c2d69c4be37fa5c53043480f7ac78b951031558181; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:22:12.083Z.