CHI87LA022 · Piper PA-28R-200
Arrow Flight Club Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Austin Municipal Airport (AUM) to Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87LA022
- 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
- N578PA
- Operator
- Arrow Flight Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Austin Municipal Airport (AUM), Austin, MNTo Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR), Grand Rapids, MI
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Gear down and locked, not attained
- Pilot in command › Gear extension, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of South Bend, IN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE AT 7000' MSL, THE PLT ASSUMED THAT HE WAS HAVING AN ELECTRICAL FAILURE BECAUSE HE HAD NOT HEARD ANY ARTCC TRANSMISSIONS, FUEL GAUGES WERE INDICATING LOW FUEL, AMMETER READING WAS ZERO, AND LANDING GEAR WOULD NOT CYCLE. HE SHUT OFF ALL ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT EXCEPT COMM AND PROCEEDED TO SOUTH BEND AIRPORT. WHILE PREPARING TO LAND HE CHECKED THE POSITION OF THE OVERRIDE LEVER FOR THE AUTOMATIC EXTENSION OF THE LANDING GEAR, BUT DID NOT TRY TO RAISE AND THEN LOWER THE LEVER AS SUGGESTED UNDER EMERGENCY PROCEDURES IN THE ACFT MANUAL. PLT ALSO STATED HE DID NOT TRY TO YAW THE ACFT WHICH IS ALSO RECOMMENDED IN ACFT MANUAL FOR EMERGENCY GEAR EXTENSION. ALTHOUGH THE PLT DID TRY TO VERIFY ELECTRICAL FAILURE BY TURNING ON THE PITOT HEAT, HE DID NOT FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE TO SWITCH OFF THE ALTERNATOR FOR ONE SECOND AND THEN BACK ON TO SEE IF THE AMMETER CONTINUED TO INDICATE NO OUTPUT. ACFT LANDED GEAR UP RESULTING IN SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE TO ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87LA022
- Event ID
- 20001213X35131
- Case number
- CHI87LA022
- 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: 40cd65a3f72c370dafab97e6bdb94e0c7e9f890aca52b966e1d63d0ca3edf094; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:09:42.051Z.