Incident Overview
On March 29, 2013, at approximately 1445 eastern daylight time, a Schweizer 269C-1 helicopter, registration N2065P, experienced a hard landing at Burke Lakefront Airport (KBKL) in Cleveland, Ohio. The helicopter, owned and operated by JW Helicopter LLC under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a personal flight, sustained substantial damage to its fuselage. The private pilot onboard was not injured. The local flight had departed KBKL at an unknown time.
Pilot Actions
According to information collected by the responding Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, the pilot did not compensate for the helicopter's descent rate during the flare, resulting in a hard landing. The pilot had accumulated an estimated 80 hours of total flight time at the time of the incident. Prior to the completion of the report, the pilot had not submitted a completed NTSB Form 6120.
Damage Assessment
Substantial damage was noted to the fuselage structure of the helicopter. No other damage details were provided in the source.