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BFO86FA023 · Piper PA-28R-200

14 Apr 1986 · Camp Springs, MD, United States

Andrews Aero Club Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach

From Lee Airport (ANP) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
BFO86FA023
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-28R-200

Aircraft type
Piper PA-28
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
N32613
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Lee Airport (ANP), Annapolis, MDTo 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
Approach · VFR pattern final
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

  • Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
  • Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Disabled
  • Landing gear, nose gear assembly › Bent

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Camp Springs, MD, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

DURING A FLT TO PREPARE THE STUDENT FOR A CFI CHECK RIDE, BOTH THE STUDENT AND THE CFI COULD NOT OBTAIN A GREEN LIGHT CONFIRMING THE NOSE GEAR WAS DOWN AND LOCKED. AFTER NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS TO ASSURE IT WAS DOWN AND LOCKED THE ACFT WAS LANDED AT ANDREWS AFB. THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED ON LANDING AND THE ACFT SLID OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RWY. EXAMINATION REVEALED A SKEWED WEAR PATTERN DEEP WITHIN THE SLOT OF THE NOSE GEAR ALIGNER GUIDE. THE ENTIRE SLOT WAS FOUND TWISTED IN A DIRECTION CONSISTENT WITH DEFORMATION AT ITS UPPER END OF ONE OF THE GUIDE WALLS. THE EXTERIOR SURFACE OF THE SLOT WALL WHICH CONTAINED THE DEFORMATION AT ITS UPPER END REVEALED MARKS CONSISTENT WITH SHORT TERM CONTACT WITH THE ALIGNMENT BUSHING WHICH NORMALLY RIDES WITHIN THE SLOT. IF THE BUSHING DID NOT ALIGN WITH ITS GUIDE DURING RETRACTION AND BENT ONE OF THE GUIDE WALLS IT MAY CAUSE THE GEAR TO FAIL TO FULLY EXTEND.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record BFO86FA023
Event ID
20001213X33226
Case number
BFO86FA023
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: 38eb37949535e3f78c071d94c9e76941482ce866c68e35ec311676ca4b87d6b6; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:29:08.582Z.