ATL93LA049 · Piper PA-30
Piper PA-30 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV) to Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93LA049
- 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-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N7712Y
- Operator
- Upchurch, Cornell P. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV)To Crossville Memorial Airport Whitson Field (CSV)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
- Pilot in command › Gear extension, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Crossville, TN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ABOUT 30 MINUTES INTO THE LOCAL FLIGHT, THE PRIVATE PILOT REPORTED THAT TOTAL ELECTRICAL POWER WAS LOST. HE COULD NOT LOWER THE FLAPS, AND WHEN HE LOWERED THE GEAR HANDLE, NO GREENS LIGHTS ILLUMINATED. HE ELECTED TO RAISE THE GEAR HANDLE AND LAND. THE AIRCRAFT WAS STRUCTURALLY DAMAGED DURING THE LANDING. WHEN THE AIRCRAFT WAS REMOVED FROM THE RUNWAY, AN FBO EMPLOYEE LOWERED THE GEAR HANDLE, AND THE GEAR EXTENDED AND LOCKED. HE THEN TURNED ON THE MASTER SWITCH, AND OBSERVED 3 GREEN GEAR DOWN LIGHTS ILLUMINATED. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE DID NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THE MANUAL ALTERNATE GEAR EXTENSION METHOD. THE PILOT ALSO REPORTED THAT THE LOSS OF ELECTRICAL POWER COULD HAVE RESULTED FROM HIS FAILURE TO TURN ON THE GENERATORS DURING THE FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW CHECKLIST PROCEDURES IN THAT HE DID NOT UTILIZE THE ALTERNATE GEAR EXTENSION METHOD WHEN ELECTRICAL POWER WAS LOST. A FACTOR WAS HIS FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST WHEN HE FAILED TO TURN ON THE GENERATORS PRIOR TO FLIGHT, WHICH RESULTED IN ELECTRICAL FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93LA049
- Event ID
- 20001211X11648
- Case number
- ATL93LA049
- 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: 0c94b333add8dc01814e837186440b725db701c15375fbc87a202a58255a3ac3; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:23:52.913Z.