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MKC86LA154 · Piper PA-23-250T

22 Jul 1986 · Norfolk, NE, United States

Piper PA-23-250T · Accident: fire on approach

From Capital Region International Airport (LAN) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MKC86LA154
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-23-250T

Aircraft type
Piper PA-23
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
N62719
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Capital Region International Airport (LAN), Lansing, MITo 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 base
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
Fire
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

  • Fuel system, line › Failure, total

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

A FIRE STARTED INFLIGHT IN THE LEFT WHEEL WELL AND NACELLE AREA JUST AFTER THE PILOT TURNED ON THE ELECTRIC FUEL PUMPS DURING THE TURN TO FINAL APPROACH. THE AIRPLANE WAS LANDED AND THE PILOT EVACUATED SAFELY. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE AIRPLANE APPEARED TO BE ON A LEVEL PLANE WHEN THE PILOT EVACUATED THE AIRPLANE BUT LATER AFTER THE FIRE PROGRESSED, THE LEFT SIDE OF THE AIRPLANE DROPPED WHEN THE FIRE BURNED THROUGH THE LEFT MAIN GEAR AREA AND THE LEFT MAIN SPAR. AFTERWARD, THE LEFT MAIN GEAR APPEARED TO BE COLLAPSED FROM THE FIRE. A FRACTURED FUEL LINE WAS FOUND NEAR THE LEFT ENGINE DRIVEN FUEL PUMP. A METALLURGIST STATED THE FRACTURE HAD NOT ORIGINATED DURING THE TIGHTENING PROCESS AND THE GEOMETRY OF THE SEPARATED SURFACES WAS TYPICAL OF BENDING LOADS.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MKC86LA154
Event ID
20001213X34277
Case number
MKC86LA154
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: 028dcd74eb3c77583c2fd50fb174ef62091beae22b5abccf5aa86dde104da5ac; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:15:37.205Z.