LAX90LA150 · Piper PA46
Piper Aircraft Piper PA46 · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90LA150
- 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 PA46
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA46
- 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
- N4387S
- Operator
- Piper Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CATo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Main gear collapsed
- 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(cfi) › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Complacency
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Gear down and locked, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO STATEMENTS FROM ALL THREE INDIVIDUALS ON BOARD, UPON ARRIVING IN THE VICINITY OF PASO ROBLES AIRPORT AT ABOUT 5,800 FEET ABOVE THE AIRPORT, THE INSTRUCTOR SHUT DOWN THE ENGINE TO SIMULATE AN ENGINE FAILURE. THE PILOT BEING TRAINED WAS INSTRUCTED TO GLIDE THE AIRCRAFT TO A SAFE LANDING AT THE AIRPORT. DURING THE SIMULATED EMERGENCY DESCENT, THE PILOT BEING TRAINED ASKED SEVERAL TIMES IF THE GEAR SHOULD NOT BE EXTENDED UNTIL THE TURN FROM BASE TO FINAL WAS BEING MADE. THE WITNESSES ABOARD THE AIRCRAFT FURTHER STATED THAT ON SHORT FINAL, AT A VERY LOW ALTITUDE, THE GEAR WAS LOWERED USING THE EMERGENCY GEAR EXTENSION PROCEDURE. THE LEFT MAIN GEAR DID NOT FULLY EXTEND AND LOCK INTO POSITION PRIOR TO THE AIRCRAFT TOUCHING DOWN ON THE RUNWAY. ON TOUCHDOWN, THE LEFT MAIN GEAR COLLAPSED, CAUSING THE LEFT WING TO COLLIDE WITH THE RUNWAY.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE ALTITUDE FOR PROPER LANDING GEAR EXTENSION; NOT ENSURING THE LANDING GEAR WAS DOWN AND LOCKED; COMPLACENCY OF THE CERTIFIED FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90LA150
- Event ID
- 20001212X22954
- Case number
- LAX90LA150
- 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: 7b0d4be0586129da2a12f9da6bcd08ae3fd0b46eaf7c51610b78879a97d4c057; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:28:46.331Z.