ATL07LA004 · Piper PA-28R-180
Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Shelby County Airport (EET) to EET
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07LA004
- 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-28R-180
- 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
- N70SR
- Operator
- Milton Perry Sheppard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shelby County Airport (EET), Alabaster, ALTo EET
- 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
- Main gear collapsed
- 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
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Jammed
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 he was practicing in preparation for his commercial pilot certificate. On the initial takeoff, after raising the gear, the pilot noticed the gear in-transit light remained on. The pilot pulled the landing gear pump circuit breaker. When he reset the breaker, he did not see a movement on the amp meter. He said this was an indication that the pump was not running. Although the in-transit light remained on, the pilot stated that the gear was up and locked. The pilot continued on to the practice area to do some air work, then he returned to the airport to do some touch-and-go landings. The pilot stated that on the first landing the gear went down normally and he had three green lights. On the takeoff he said the gear would not go up and lock. He cycled the gear handle several times. The pilot stated he had three green lights and the gear in-transit light was still on. The pilot stated the light was on for the entire flight. He said that he made a normal touchdown, and the right main gear collapsed veering the airplane to the right, off the runway. Examination of the airplane by an FAA Inspector found the nose and right main landing gear collapsed and structural damage to the wing ribs at the right main landing gear attach point. The airplane was placed in a hangar and jacked up for a retraction test. The gear handle was placed in the up position and the gear raised normally and the in-transit light was not on when the gear was up and locked. When the gear handle was placed in the down position the hydraulic pump operated but the gear did not extend. The landing gear remained up and locked. Striking the pump with a hammer freed the shuttle valve and the gear operated normally. According to the FAA Inspector the gear would not extend normally without striking the shuttle valve with a hammer.
Probable cause
The jammed landing gear hydraulic motor shuttle valve.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07LA004
- Event ID
- 20061016X01523
- Case number
- ATL07LA004
- 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: 586f7260de2c247277372403bc92e2d9481bf9540e43da46a28721de14a94510; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:22:06.716Z.