BFO86FA023 · Piper PA-28R-200
Andrews Aero Club Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Lee Airport (ANP) to an unrecorded destination
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
- Operator
- Andrews Aero Club
- 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.