MIA04LA102 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: wheels up landing
From Mobile Downtown Airport (KBFM) to Stennis International Airport (KHSA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA102
- 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
Beech V35B
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N2167L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mobile Downtown Airport (KBFM), Mobile, ALTo Stennis International Airport (KHSA), Bay Saint Louis, MS
- 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
- 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 pilot stated that the flight proceeded to the destination airport where he descended to traffic pattern altitude and entered the downwind leg at a normal 45-degree entry. When abeam the numbers during the downwind leg, he placed the landing gear selector handle to the down position and observed three green lights. He also reported that the airplane slowed as though the extended gear drag was present. The rest of the approach was what he considered typical and at no time was there any indication that something was "amiss." After a typical final approach he reduced power to idle and entered ground effect, then during the flare approximately 2-5 feet above the runway surface, he heard the gear warning horn sound but it was not until the propeller contacted the runway surface did he realize, "...the gear must not have been locked, or must have cycled back into the up position." The airplane came to rest on the right side of the runway. The pilot further stated that after the airplane was raised from the runway, all landing gears were in their respective wheel wells with the doors fully closed. He then entered the cockpit, noted the landing gear motor circuit breaker was popped, and cycled the landing gear selector handle from the down to the up then down position. He then pushed in the landing gear motor circuit breaker, turned on the master switch, and the landing gear extended. The airplane was then towed to the hangar. Following recovery of the airplane the airplane, it was placed on jacks and in the presence of an FAA airworthiness inspector, six complete landing gear retraction checks were performed with no discrepancies noted.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to verify the landing gear was extended prior to touchdown resulting in a gear-up landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA102
- Event ID
- 20040709X00935
- Case number
- MIA04LA102
- 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, coordinates. 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: 570913ba13a927a019bf241734ca8b7535ccc16505cd1ad8a997a3bd03ff848b; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:13:46.205Z.