MIA87LA059 · Piper PA-44
Piper PA-44 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Key West International Airport (EYW) to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA87LA059
- 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-44
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N2197X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Key West International Airport (EYW), Key West, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FL
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 obtained
- Pilot in command › Gear extension, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF ON AN IFR FLT, THE FLT LOST ALL ELECTRICAL POWER WHILE IN VFR CONDITIONS. THE FLT RETURNED TO THE ARPT AND THE PLT COMPLETED THE PRE-LANDING CHECKLIST PLACING THE GEAR HANDLE IN THE DOWN POSITION. THE GEAR, BEING ELECTRICALLY OPERATED, DID NOT EXTEND AND THE ACFT LANDED GEAR UP. THE PLT STATED THAT AT THE LAST MOMENT DURING THE FLARE, HE REMEMBERED THE GEAR WAS ELECTRICALLY DRIVEN AND ATTEMPTED TO EXTEND IT BY THE EMERGENCY METHOD, BUT WAS UNABLE TO DO SO IN TIME. AN EXAM OF THE BATTERY REVEALED THAT IT WAS IN A DISCHARGED CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA87LA059
- Event ID
- 20001213X35404
- Case number
- MIA87LA059
- 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: c799b160dd57dac01db3ba24b03cca326700c48710b9315d88fd65e4e5b8f687; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:39:04.737Z.