ERA14CA348 · Schweizer 269C
Bristow Academy Schweizer 269C · Accident: hard landing
From Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX) to Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA348
- 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
Schweizer 269C
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 269
- 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
- N1830D
- Operator
- Bristow Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX), Titusville, FLTo Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX), Titusville, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2006)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the flight instructor, the instructional flight was in preparation for his student's evaluation flight scheduled the following day. The maneuvers practiced were settling with power, straight-in autorotations, 180-degree autorotations, hovering autorotations, and quick stops. The student pilot was manipulating the controls and initiated an autorotation about 1,300 feet above ground level (agl). About 100 feet agl, the instructor directed the student to initiate a recovery flare. About 50 feet agl, the instructor took the controls from the student and initiated the flare. The helicopter contacted the ground with the tail skid, then the left skid, and subsequently rolled over on its left side. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor blades, cabin, and drivetrain. The pilot reported no pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to initiate the decelerative flare during autorotation and the CFI's delayed remedial action, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA348
- Event ID
- 20140722X52311
- Case number
- ERA14CA348
- 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: 0039323b13ac270afe6d6e44ec5ee71e4369fc384a62a81362c8db8501ccf9f6; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:57:26.899Z.