LAX00LA112 · Piper PA-32R-301T PA-32R-301
Piper PA-32R-301T PA-32R-301 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) to Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA112
- 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-32R-301T PA-32R-301
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N8170S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CATo Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CA
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The landing gear collapsed during a precautionary landing following a complete electrical system failure. The airplane experienced a complete electrical failure during cruise. The pilot decided to make a precautionary landing and diverted to an alternate airport. He shut down all electrical items when he became aware of the electrical system failure. As he neared the alternate airport, he slowed the airplane down to the normal gear extension speed, lowered the gear with the automatic switch, and felt the landing gear extend. He stated that because there were no landing gear lights illuminated he could not verify that the landing gear was in the locked position. He then conducted the emergency gear extension checklist, and noted that his airspeed and power were consistent with what he associated with the landing gear being in the down position. Touchdown was normal, but on the landing rollout, the nose and left main landing gear collapsed and the left wing struck a taxi light. Prior to exiting the airplane, the pilot shutoff the master switch. During the recovery of the airplane, it was raised on jacks and the landing gear was extended with no discrepancies noted. During repair work on the airplane, a landing gear extension/retraction test was conducted, with no system anomalies noted. The inspection of the airplane was unable to determine the cause of the electrical failure.
Probable cause
The failure of the landing gear for undetermined reasons to go into the locked position after the pilot conducted a manual and emergency gear extension. A factor in the accident was the undetermined failure of the electrical system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA112
- Event ID
- 20001212X20665
- Case number
- LAX00LA112
- 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 2000-03-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a93e8e8e17971798e58e320d1d4d90726cc55b70c3f060efd744aa34f508dc1e; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:06:20.439Z.