21 Jul 2014: SCHWEIZER 269C — BRISTOW ACADEMY INC

21 Jul 2014: SCHWEIZER 269C — BRISTOW ACADEMY INC

No fatalities • Titusville, FL, United States

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.

— NTSB Determination

Accident 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.

Contributing factors

  • cause Student/instructed pilot
  • cause Landing flare — Not attained/maintained
  • cause Instructor/check pilot

Conditions

Weather
VMC, vis 7sm

Loading the flight search…

What you can do on Flight Finder

  • Search flights between any two airports with live fares.
  • By aircraft — pick a plane model (e.g. Boeing 787, Airbus A350) and see every route it flies from your origin.
  • Route map — click any airport worldwide to explore its destinations, or draw a radius to find nearby airports.
  • Global aviation safety — aviation accident database, 5,200+ records since 1980, with map and rankings by aircraft and operator.
  • NTSB safety feed — recent U.S. aviation accidents and incidents from the official NTSB CAROL database, updated daily.

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.