FTW03LA172 · Robinson R22 Beta
Robinson R22 Beta · Accident: hard landing
From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH) to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA172
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 R22 Beta
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R22
- 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
- N7198H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Houston, TXTo David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Rotor RPM, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Upon completion of the pipeline patrol flight, while returning to DWH airport, the flight instructor rolled the throttle to flight idle to simulate a loss of engine power. The student pilot lowered the collective and initiated an autorotation to an open field, into the prevailing strong southerly wind. A high rate of descent developed during the autorotation and during the ensuing landing, the helicopter landed hard and bounced, which resulted in the separating of the tail boom from the fuselage. Winds were reported from 180 degrees at 16 knots, gusting to 21 knots. Despite repeated attempts by the investigator-in-charge (IIC), the pilot never returned a completed Pilot Operator Aircraft Accident Report Form (NTSB Form 6120.1/2).
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain rotor RPM and the improper landing flare resulting in a hard landing. A contributing factor was the prevailing high winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA172
- Event ID
- 20030616X00880
- Case number
- FTW03LA172
- 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, coordinates. 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: 930ce94e133d05fdd72e7ff4eb9c314070cf678ccbe5aedfd6097f1894c4c49e; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:27:26.358Z.