CHI88DEP13 · Heibel AIR COMMAND 532 AIR COMMAN
Heibel AIR COMMAND 532 AIR COMMAN · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88DEP13
- 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
- 1 · 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
Heibel AIR COMMAND 532 AIR COMMAN
- Aircraft type
- Heibel AIR COMMAND 532
- Category
- Gyroplane
- 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
- N7015C
- Operator
- Robert M. Heibel · private individual
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Lack of total experience in type of aircraft
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Rotorcraft flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT THIS AMATEUR BUILT GYROCOPTER EXPERIENCED A MAIN ROTOR STRIKE TO THE RUDDER AND PROPELLER. THE STUDENT PILOT WHO HAD A TOTAL OF EIGHT HOURS FLIGHT TIME, ALL IN THIS AIRCRAFT, WAS CONDUCTING A SOLO FLIGHT IN THIS DUAL CONTROL GYROCOPTER. HE RECEIVED FATAL INJURIES DURING THE IN-FLIGHT BREAKUP AND IMPACT WITH THE TERRAIN. THE AIRCRAFT WAS DESTROYED. THE FLIGHT MANUAL INDICATES 'THE PILOT MUST HAVE AT LEAST 50 HOURS OF SOLO FLIGHT TIME LOGGED IN A COMMANDER GYROPLANE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO FLY THE 532 COMMANDER DUAL SEAT GYROPLANE...'
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88DEP13
- Event ID
- 20001213X26776
- Case number
- CHI88DEP13
- 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: 6dde75df56538b26c0ce6b35ff4d21563195f1ff8f77efa7e2f8ec6105308834; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:33:27.450Z.