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Atlas / NTSB / WPR23LA059

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR23LA059

2022-12-07 Ft Worth, Texas, United States Airport · XS04 None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N2036F

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BELL 206-L4

Year of manufacture

1995 · 27 years old at event

TCDS

H2SW · BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON CANADA LTD

Engine

ALLISON 250-C30 SER (650 hp)

Seats / Engines

7 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20000411

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A1A058

Registrant of record

BELL TEXTRON INC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s improper landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing. Contributing to the accident, was the flight instructor’s inadequate supervision.

Factual narrative

The flight instructor reported that, during the instructional flight practicing autorotations, the pilot receiving instruction flared the helicopter in a more pronounced nose up attitude, an aft cyclic and higher descent rate, but not excessive enough to require him to take control. During the landing, the main rotor blades contacted the tail boom. The tail rotor driveshaft and vertical fins were substantially damaged during the landing. The flight instructor reported that there were no of preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would preclude normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Student/instructed pilot
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Student/instructed pilot
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Landing flare-Not attained/maintained
  • Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring other person-Instructor/check pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_WPR23LA059.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗