FTW95LA212 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Fairmont Field Airport (OK16) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA212
- 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
- 0
- 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
Piper PA-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N3245P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairmont Field Airport (OK16)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Approach
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Hydraulic system, pump › Failure
- Landing gear, emergency extension assembly › Failure
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
FOLLOWING TAKEOFF THE PILOT RETRACTED THE LANDING GEAR AND IT APPEARED TO THE PASSENGER THAT THE GEAR CAME UP SLOWLY. THE PILOT RECYCLED THE LANDING GEAR SEVERAL TIMES AND REPORTED THAT HE SMELT HYDRAULIC FLUID. THE PILOT ELECTED TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT TO CHECK THE LANDING GEAR. DURING THE APPROACH HE LOWERED THE GEAR; HOWEVER, ONLY THE MAIN GEARS EXTENDED. THE PILOT MADE NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS TO LOWER THE NOSE GEAR, BUT WAS UNABLE TO DO SO. THE AIRCRAFT LANDED ON A GRASS AREA ADJACENT TO THE RUNWAY WITH THE NOSE RETRACTED AND THE MAIN GEAR EXTENDED. AN INSPECTION OF THE LANDING GEAR REVEALED THE LACK OF HYDRAULIC FLUID IN THE SYSTEM AND DAMAGE TO THE PUMP.
Probable cause
THE FAILURES OF THE LANDING GEAR HYDRAULIC PUMP AND THE EMERGENCY GEAR EXTENSION SYSTEM AS RESULT OF INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE BY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA212
- Event ID
- 20001207X03466
- Case number
- FTW95LA212
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-05-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 29e73c9d59efbe5d2410a4b373dd86315e5a1310977bb8075ac80dfb7732e660; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:56:15.076Z.