ERA23LA211 · Aeropilot S R O LEGEND 600
Aeropilot S R O LEGEND 600 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From New Hibiscus Airpark (X52) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23LA211
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Aeropilot S R O LEGEND 600
- Aircraft type
- Aeropilot LEGEND 600
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N600LD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Hibiscus Airpark (X52), Vero Beach, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2016)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot departed from the turf runway at his home airport, which he described as “extremely rough,” for a solo flight in the airport traffic pattern. The pilot stated that the first 300 feet of the runway past the displaced threshold was “a very soft area” and a cone had been placed there, so he landed the airplane about 700 feet from the displaced threshold. The airplane bounced back into the air to a height of about 7 to 8 feet and the pilot added power and increased back pressure on the control wheel to hold the nose wheel off the runway. The airplane then touched down again on the main landing gear and the nose wheel again touched down on the runway. The nose wheel then contacted 3 to 5 “bumps” before settling into the turf, the lower portion of the nose landing gear separated, and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest inverted. The student pilot received minor injuries and the airplane’s fuselage and empennage were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Review of the student pilot’s logbook revealed that his presolo aeronautical knowledge endorsement indicated that he was aware of the flight characteristics and operational limitations of the airplane, as well as the airspace rules and procedures for the airport, which he had flown the airplane in and out of and landed at on at least 18 separate occasions. He therefore should also have been aware of the runway conditions. Given this information, it is likely that the student pilot’s landing technique was not appropriate for the condition of the turf runway, and that the techniques he used to recover from the bounced landing resulted in subsequent nose landing gear collapse and noseover.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper recovery from a bounced landing, which resulted in a nose landing gear collapse and subsequent noseover. Contributing was the rough condition of the runway, as described by the pilot, and his decision to operate from it.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23LA211
- Event ID
- 20230428107163
- Case number
- ERA23LA211
- 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, cause areas. 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: e4812b3d9dd71d41c55daf31d60ca5e1e497ea45359e23ecf83ee5426b7868b6; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:33:21.644Z.