MIA00LA091 · Beech F90
Beech F90 · Accident: gear retraction on ground while taxiing
From Monroe Walton County Airport (D73) to Aiken Regional Airport (AIK)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA091
- 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 F90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 90
- 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
- N101ET
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monroe Walton County Airport (D73), Monroe, GATo Aiken Regional Airport (AIK), Aiken, SC
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Chafed
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Shorted
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that while taxiing for takeoff he selected max ground heat, and immediately experienced main gear retraction. The tail dropped suddenly, impacting the ramp, and the airplane slid about 30 feet before coming to rest. An FAA inspector and a manufacturer's representative examined the airplane, and found that a partially spiral wrapped wiring bundle, tied in the vicinity of the aileron control cables and turnbuckle, had some wires which had chafed. The wiring insulation had been removed due to friction exerted against either the turnbuckle, or the cable. The manufacturer's representative stated that two of the wires which had chafed through electrically shorted together when the pilot selected max ground heat, activating the landing gear's relay, and initiating the landing gear retraction cycle while the aircraft was on the ground.
Probable cause
chafed wiring that resulted in an electrical short which initiated the landing gear retraction cycle when cabin heat was activated, resulting in the main landing gear retracting during taxi.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA091
- Event ID
- 20001212X20536
- Case number
- MIA00LA091
- 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, coordinates. 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: 3a7ccbdc15b65f2dc854258206fcdd27907bd6dbebe726150295c872503d2d3d; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:14:43.225Z.