DFW08CA082 · Robinson R22 BETA
Robinson R22 BETA · Accident: hard landing during autorotation
From Marble Falls, TX to Marble Falls, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08CA082
- 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
- N489TJ
- Operator
- Kent Leighton
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marble Falls, TXTo Marble Falls, TX
- 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
- Autorotation
- Defining eventThe 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a flight review the private pilot completed three practice autorotations to an unimproved open field, terminating in a power recovery. During the fourth practice autorotation the pilot could not get the engine to respond during the power recovery. The flight instructor took over the controls, at about 100 feet above ground level, and completed the autorotation to a touchdown. According to the flight instructor, he had to flare steeply to avoid a tree line. The helicopter touched down on the heels of the skids and tail stinger. The aft section of the tail boom separated from the helicopter when the main rotor blades contacted the tail boom and the tail rotor assembly. The pilot said the flight instructor initiated an aggressive flare and struck the ground hard, and that there was a violent shudder as the helicopter leveled the skids. The helicopter came to rest upright. There was no post crash fire. The pilot reported a minor injury and the flight instructor reported no injuries. An examination of the helicopter's engine by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspectors did not reveal any pre-impact anomalies; additionally they reported that more than a half tank of fuel remained in the helicopter at the accident site.
Probable cause
The certified flight instructor's delay in taking remedial action which resulted in an unsuccessful autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08CA082
- Event ID
- 20080425X00547
- Case number
- DFW08CA082
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 760a0490b9c86398c1e2fdbf95a42aae68b02273c0712169c92248c97b75cafa; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:34:31.952Z.