CEN14LA296 · Bell 206B
Federal Aviation Administration Bell 206B · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW) to Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA296
- 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
Bell 206B
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- N536T
- Operator
- Federal Aviation Administration
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW), Fort Worth, TXTo Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW), Fort Worth, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 34 years (built 1980)
- 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
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot-rated student and flight instructor were conducting a helicopter proficiency flight. After about 2 hours of flight and completing a series of maneuvers, which included straight-in and 180-degee autorotations, the instructor began to demonstrate another 180-degree autorotation. The instructor reported that, when the helicopter was at 200 ft at the start of the approach, the rotor speed was in the mid to low section of the green band. At the beginning of the flare, he tried to roll in full throttle, but he felt resistance, and he didn't get the power restored in time. He then attempted to level the helicopter to avoid a tail strike. The pilot receiving instruction reported that the instructor was at the controls and that, when the helicopter was at 100 ft, he noticed that the rotor speed was at a minimum and that the rate of closure was slow. He thought they were going to be short, so he called for power and reached for the throttle to confirm it was fully on. The helicopter landed hard and slid to a stop just off the runway. Examination of the helicopter and throttle system did not reveal any abnormalities.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s improper recovery from a practice autorotation, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA296
- Event ID
- 20140617X85917
- Case number
- CEN14LA296
- 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. 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: 91ff792d5407b637adac293314cc97a718c73b2da13d666fd53dc91d2841cd19; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:06:09.723Z.