FTW01LA157 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: wheels up landing
From Dimmit County Airport (CZT) to Garner Field (UVA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01LA157
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6474P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dimmit County Airport (CZT), Carrizo Springs, TXTo Garner Field (UVA), Uvalde
- 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
- 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
- Wheels up landing
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that on descent he was high and fast. He entered downwind at 3000 feet, and before he turned base leg, he realized he was still too high so he lowered the flaps. He stated that during the final approach, he used full flaps with a speed of 80 mph. About one-half mile from the runway, he positioned the landing gear switch in the down position, but did not immediately check the gear down lights to verify if the gear was down. The pilot stated "he didn't check the gear down light until over the runway, then no light. Too late to go-around." The airplane touched down and slid approximately 170 yards before coming to a stop on the runway. When the pilot opened the door and exited the airplane, he noted black smoke coming from beneath the airplane. The ensing fire consumed the rear portion of the fuselage. When asked how the accident could have been prevented, the pilot replied "do not break from procedures of your normal landings."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to verify the landing gear was down and locked, which resulted in a wheels up landing and subsequent ground fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01LA157
- Event ID
- 20010629X01289
- Case number
- FTW01LA157
- 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: f5644d48efcebb8e4609758cba47b014805b38915711f69ea5c0eba28096df1e; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:49:45.405Z.