MIA06LA126 · Fairchild Hiller FH-1100
Fairchild Hiller FH-1100 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Pullum Pad Heliport (52FD) to Century, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06LA126
- 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
Fairchild Hiller FH-1100
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild Hiller FH-1100
- 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
- N4035G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pullum Pad Heliport (52FD), Navarre, FLTo Century, FL
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Manufacturer › Procedure inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While flying in straight and level flight at 600 feet and approximately 100 miles-per-hour, undetected fatigue cracks in the stainless steel plates of one of the tail rotor blade tension-torsion bars resulted in in-flight separation of one tail rotor blade, and subsequent structural separation of a portion of the ventral fin. The pilot executed an autorotative landing to shallow water and there were no injuries to the pilot or pilot-rated passenger. Eight of the 11 stainless steel plates of the tension-torsion bar assembly exhibited fatigue which originated from stress risers created during the manufacturing process (punching) of the holes of the plates. Reaming of the holes did not eliminate the surface created during the punching process. This problem was previously noted to exist and corrective action was taken in the form of an airworthiness directive (AD), but the AD was not applicable to the accident helicopter because the serial number of the accident tension-torsion bars was outside of the scope of the AD.
Probable cause
The inadequate manufacturing of the plates of the tail rotor tension-torsion bar assembly resulting in fatigue failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06LA126
- Event ID
- 20060804X01087
- Case number
- MIA06LA126
- 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: 6ae506eec7eca43a327060153a5d81d2f7bcca9cbe8176a16cc88ede6b9d1303; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:47:44.456Z.