MIA05CA039 · Robinson R-22
Lunsford Air Robinson R-22 · Accident: hard landing
From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05CA039
- 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 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
- N7188N
- Operator
- Lunsford Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spruce Creek Airport (7FL6), Port Orange, 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
- 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
- Flare › Improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a preflight inspection damage was discovered to the tailcone assembly of the helicopter. Upon further examination and consulting with the manufacture of the helicopter, by the operator, it was determined that a major repair was required to return the helicopter to airworthiness condition. The forward bulkhead, forward bulkhead skin, and doublers for that area of the tailcone had to be replaced. On the questionnaire submitted to the manufacture by the operator to aid in assessing the type of repair required stated "damage was sustained during a hovering autorotation." On December 3, 2004, an inspector from the FAA notified the NTSB of the damage. On December 8, 2004 a completed Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident Report was provide by the instructor pilot who flew the helicopter the day before the damage was discovered. He stated he had not seen the damage and does not know when or how it occurred. He only assumes the cause was from a hard set down during a practice hovering autorotation.
Probable cause
The improper landing flare by an unknown pilot at an unknown time resulting in a hard landing and substantial damage to the helicopters tailcone.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05CA039
- Event ID
- 20050106X00019
- Case number
- MIA05CA039
- 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: 0292e8936e867af35cf275952c053553433b158946cc1e1fcc0d16e87514051f; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:33:04.253Z.