SEA03LA018 · Hawker Siddeley DH-125
Hawker Siddeley DH-125 · Accident: wheels up landing
From Sacramento Mather Airport (MHR) to King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA018
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Hawker Siddeley DH-125
- Aircraft type
- Hawker Siddeley DH-125
- 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
- N55RF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sacramento Mather Airport (MHR), Sacramento, CATo King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
- 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
- Pilot in command › Gear down and locked, not verified
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Co-Pilot was the flying pilot with the Captain giving directions throughout the approach phase. The Captain stated that he extended the flaps and the landing gear. When the aircraft touched down, the landing gear was not extended. The Co-Pilot reported that she did look down at the landing gear lever and at "three green lights" on the approach. The CVR was read out which indicated that the Co-Pilot directed the Captain to call inbound. The Captain acknowledged this and stated "fifteen flaps." The Co-Pilot then stated "fifteen flaps, before landing." The Captain did not respond to the Co-Pilot but instead made a radio transmission. The Captain shortly thereafter, stated that he was extending the flaps to 25 degrees. The Captain made another radio transmission to the tower when the Co-Pilot stated "final, sync, ignitions." The Captain responded "ignitions on." Full flaps were then extended. The Captain gave the Co-Pilot continued directions while on the approach for heading, speed and altitude. At approximately 300 feet, the Captain stated, "yaw damper's off, air valves are off, ready to land." The Captain reported that it was obvious that touchdown was on the flaps and keel. The Captain stated that he raised the flaps, shutdown the engines, and confirmed that the landing gear handle was down. During the gear swing test the landing gear cycled several times with no difficulties. All red and green lights illuminated at the proper positions. During the test, it was found that the gear not extended horn did not function with the gear retracted, the flaps fully extended and the power levers at idle. Later a bad set of contacts to the relay was found. When the relay was jumped, the horn sounded. Inspection of the damage to the aircraft revealed that the outer rims of both outer tires displayed scrape marks around the circumference of the rim. The outer surface of the gear door fairings were scraped and the flap hinge fairings was ground down.
Probable cause
The landing gear down and locked was not verified prior to landing. The checklist was not followed, and an inoperative landing gear warning horn were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA018
- Event ID
- 20021220X05625
- Case number
- SEA03LA018
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-12-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dff41319ebba2bb9c11a8dbb2626c8683a6676579ef3a28b6a2d2418bc591404; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:48:14.581Z.