CHI07CA109 · Piper PA-31-350
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: wheels up landing
From Hector International Airport (FAR) to Walker Municipal Airport (Y49)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA109
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N770C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector International Airport (FAR), Fargo, NDTo Walker Municipal Airport (Y49), Walker, MN
- 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 › Landing gear, not deployed
- Pilot in command › Wheels up landing, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane sustained substantial damage during an inadvertent wheels-up landing. The pilot stated that he entered a left downwind for runway 32 (2,803 feet by 75 feet, asphalt) at the intended destination airport. He reported that he lowered the landing gear and completed the before landing checklist. He noted: "All indications showed that [the landing] gear was down." He reported that during the landing flare, he "felt and heard metal grinding on the runway," and immediately executed a go-around. During the go-around, the airplane exhibited a right rolling tendency. Although, the pilot was able to maintain control, he was unable to avoid striking trees during the climb out. He subsequently noticed that the flaps were still down and raised them. The pilot returned to the airport for another landing attempt. He stated: "I lined up for a short final with my gear showing down and locked, flaps set to approach setting and power at almost [maximum]. I was able to land the aircraft and taxi to the ramp without further incident, where I parked and shut down." During the post accident inspection, the landing gear was observed in the down and locked position. Visual inspection of the landing gear did not reveal any anomalies. Three green landing gear position indicator lights were illuminated when the airplane was powered up during the inspection.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent failure to lower the landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA109
- Event ID
- 20070511X00552
- Case number
- CHI07CA109
- 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: 9f6473c8e649012591bc6a82e81a076c0804fab44a43388a6c810db73eeb3b1f; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:54:34.091Z.