FTW96LA298 · Beech 95-A55
Beech 95-A55 · Accident: gear retraction on ground during takeoff
From 1F0 to Denton Enterprise Airport (DTO)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA298
- 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
Beech 95-A55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N2992F
- Operator
- Keith Hickman
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1F0To Denton Enterprise Airport (DTO), Denton, TX
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Gear retraction on ground
- 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
- Pilot in command › Gear retraction, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Gear retraction, premature
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had purchased a 50-hour block of flight time in the airplane. His flight instructor agreed to fly as a safety pilot, with the pilot as PIC in order to meet insurance requirements. The pilot was performing the takeoff, while the instructor called out airspeeds and directed his attention inside and outside the cockpit. Passing 80 mph, the instructor maintained his vision outside the cockpit. The pilot felt the airplane 'hit a few dips in the runway' and both pilots heard a 'loud bang' from the right side and the flight instructor took command of the flight. Control was lost and the airplane veered left, crossed a taxiway and skidded into a ditch, where the airplane stopped. The instructor reported that the pilot's hand was on the throttles during the takeoff roll; however, once the 80 mph airspeed callout was made, he was not aware of the position of the pilot's hand. The pilot recalled having moved his hand to the trim; however, he 'did not remember touching the gear' selector switch. The operator and an FAA inspector examined the site and the aircraft landing gear system. They reported that damage to the gear doors was consistent with closed gear doors.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent premature retraction of the landing gear during takeoff roll. A factor was inadequate supervision by the safety pilot/flight instructor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA298
- Event ID
- 20001208X06220
- Case number
- FTW96LA298
- 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: investigation status. 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: febe314c3d569b95610ddbb2e3f08cfe57cacf72bb9a6a4bdaeba94af6b214bc; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:01:15.098Z.