FTW92LA110 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From 2V2 · Longmont, CO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92LA110
- 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-23-250
- 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
- N6460Y
- Operator
- Richard D. Sunderland · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2V2 · Longmont, COTo 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 · IFR missed 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
- Fluid, hydraulic › Loss, total
- Hydraulic system, line › Ruptured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A CFI WAS INSTRUCTING AN INSTRUMENT RATED COMMERCIAL PILOT. DURING A PRACTICE MISSED APPROACH, THE LANDING GEAR FAILED TO RETRACT. THE CREW ATTEMPTED TO LOWER THE LANDING GEAR USING ALL AVAILABLE EMERGENCY PROCEDURES. A FLY-BY THE TOWER REVEALED THAT THE MAIN GEARS WERE DOWN WHILE THE NOSE LANDING GEAR WAS IN TRANSIT. DURING LANDING ROLLOUT, THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED AS SOON AS IT MADE CONTACT WITH THE RUNWAY. THE GEAR MALFUNCTION WAS THE RESULT OF A RUPTURED HYDRAULIC FLUID LINE. THE DEPLETION OF THE HYDRAULIC FLUID RENDERED THE LANDING GEAR SYSTEM INOPERABLE.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF HYDRAULIC FLUID DUE TO A RUPTURED HYDRAULIC LINE IN THE LANDING GEAR SYSTEM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92LA110
- Event ID
- 20001211X14426
- Case number
- FTW92LA110
- 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: cb6651b673a2384183a3ae7b306fe459046a82fb018e996f43f2100515d541df; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:15:56.008Z.