SEA89LA072 · Beech A55
Beech A55 · Accident: gear collapsed during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA89LA072
- 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 A55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N6866Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WA
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 collapsed
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › Gear retraction, premature
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE OWNER (AN EXPERIENCE PLT) ACCOMPANIED THE PLT-IN-COMMAND (PIC) TO ASSIST IN A MAINTENANCE TEST FLT. THE PIC RPRTD THAT WHILE HE WAS MAKING A TOUCH-&-GO LANDING, THE OWNER RAISED THE LANDING GEAR HANDLE, WHILE THE ACFT WAS STILL ON THE GROUND. THE LANDING GEAR RETRACTED & THE ACFT SETTLED TO THE GROUND & SLID TO A STOP. A FIRE ERUPTED & SUBSEQUENTLY DESTROYED THE ACFT.
Probable cause
A PREMATURE/IMPROPER RETRACTION OF THE LANDING GEAR BY THE SECOND PILOT (AIRCRAFT OWNER), WHO WAS OCCUPYING THE RIGHT FRONT SEAT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA89LA072
- Event ID
- 20001213X28208
- Case number
- SEA89LA072
- 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 1989-04-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d19dc0b990fde0b451ac749e9580d3b8252ee92fb3286ef7a2115997d870d183; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:41:26.460Z.