ATL00LA073 · Piper PA-30
Piper PA-30 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR) to Key West International Airport (EYW)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL00LA073
- 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
- N8629Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, FLTo Key West International Airport (EYW)
- 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
- Landing gear › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not successful
- Pilot in command › Physical strength overload
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot originally departed Bowling Green, Ohio, with his wife and another passenger, en route to Key West, Florida. While en route, the airplane experienced several complete electrical system failures. While over Cape Canaveral, Florida, the airplane experienced an electrical failure and one of the passengers assisted the pilot in manually lowering the landing gear. During one diversion, the airplane's battery was charged and replaced, and on another occasion the right alternator and a broken wire from the left alternator were replaced. Prior to the reaching Key West, the one passenger who assisted the pilot in manually lowering the landing gear returned to Ohio by car. While en route to the final destination, the airplane experienced another electrical system failure 14 miles north of Key West. The pilot attempted to manually lower the landing gear, but lacked enough 'muscle' to physically lower the landing gear in the down and locked position. Upon touching down on runway 9, the airplane's landing gear collapsed.
Probable cause
A landing gear collapse resulting from the pilot's unsuccessful attempt to complete the manual gear extension due to physical strength overload. A factor was the complete electrical system failure during cruise flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL00LA073
- Event ID
- 20001212X21163
- Case number
- ATL00LA073
- 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: 832f764aa456715379c281abe917f1d2372952f9513848b1f3b7d8a9b3ccf492; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:46:44.166Z.