MIA04LA058 · Ortmayer/Parson none
Ortmayer/Parson none · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while taxiing
From X47 · Bunnell, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA058
- 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
- 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
Ortmayer/Parson none
- 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
- N69EP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From X47 · Bunnell, FLTo 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, service bulletin/letter, not complied with
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on an instructional flight, a bolt in the main rotor blade broke separating the blade from the hub. The blade struck the student pilot resulting in fatal injuries. The responding FAA inspector stated the on-scene investigation found the hub bar wing and rotor blade had separated from the hub bar due to the failure of the hub bar wing retaining bolt head. The NTSB material lab reported the bolt that retains the hub bar wing to the hub bar was fractured in the radius between the shank and the head. Presence of fatigue arrest marks covering approximately 90 percent of the cross-sectional area. The fatigue cracks initiated from multiple origins all the way around the outer diameter surface at the bases of the radius with the head. The head contacts that hub bar without the use of a washer. A product notice number 33 was issued by Rotary Air Force (RAF) on June 18, 2001, placing a 500 hour time change factor on RAF rotor blades and hub bar "until further notice". The product notice number 33 had not been accomplished on the accident gyroplane at the time of the accident. The owner/certified flight instructor (CFI) stated the blades had a total time of about 930 hours at the time of the accident, which about 430 of those hours were of airtime. He did remember getting some kind of notice through the mail, something about a 500 hours time on the blades but the notice was not clear and too vague. If it was mandatory, a notice wound be issued stating as such. The Owner/CFI added the blades on the accident gyroplane never experience a ground strike, but did have nicks and scrape marks on the blades. A representative of RAF contacted the owner/CFI about a month after product notice 33 was issued advising of the notice and informed him about internal damage and stress that occurs if the rotor blade contacts the ground and the nature of such damage, which are undetectable. The owner/CFI stated he and RAF have had conversations; however, those discussions were more about training issues and the amount of training time the students were receiving. None of those conversations were about RAF product notice number 33 or blade strikes.
Probable cause
The owner/pilot mechanic's failure to comply with a manufacture notice to replace the rotor blades and hub bar assembly, resulting in a failure of the hub bar to hub bar wing attaching bolt and separation of a main rotor blade.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA058
- Event ID
- 20040325X00373
- Case number
- MIA04LA058
- 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: 09be3f4e84e3adbcbe8579ea0c691f3543de097a5162c6ea5688bf212550f574; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:31:32.627Z.