MIA05CA051 · Robinson R22
Robinson R22 · Accident: hard landing
From K35M · Long beach, MS to Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (KGPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05CA051
- 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
- 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
- N26498
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From K35M · Long beach, MSTo Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (KGPT), Biloxi, MS
- 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
- Dual student › Flare, improper
- Dual student › Rotor RPM, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instructor stated, the student entered a well maintained 70-knot glide prior to performing the autorotation recovery. The student flared too high, 10 to 12 feet agl and kept the throttle closed, preventing the governor from restoring the rpm needed to recover from the maneuver. The lack of sufficient lift and low altitude did not allow him to slow the descent. The skids and the tailboom of the helicopter incurred substantial damage from the hard landing. The student pilot stated, everything at the time of the flare was normal; however, the instructor took control of the aircraft and felt him trying to roll the throttle on, but for some reason, the student was unable to release the throttle. The helicopter landed hard from about 5 to 6 feet above the ground.
Probable cause
The student pilot's inadequate flare and his failure to maintain rotor rpm which resulted in a hard landing. Also causal was the instructor's inadequate supervision of the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05CA051
- Event ID
- 20050211X00179
- Case number
- MIA05CA051
- 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: 90fc5477d8949aefdee004df21560302b4542deca3f9a208124442e85ca56642; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:21:16.452Z.