CEN09CA156 · Rockwell International 500-S
United States Department of Commerce Rockwell International 500-S · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Hector International Airport (FAR) to Grand Forks International Airport (GFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA156
- 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
- Government
- 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
Rockwell International 500-S
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell 500
- 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
- N51RF
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector International Airport (FAR), Fargo, NDTo Grand Forks International Airport (GFK), Grand Forks, ND
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Landing gear not configured
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The twin-engine airplane was being operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conducting snow survey flights. The airplane initially departed from the Grand Forks International Airport (GFK), Grand Forks, North Dakota, and made a refueling stop at the Fargo International Airport, Fargo, North Dakota. The airplane was on a repositioning flight back to GFK when the accident occurred. During the flight, the airplane was cleared by air traffic control for the runway 17R localizer backcourse approach to GFK. The airplane landed on runway 17R with the landing gear in the retracted position, resulting in substantial damage to the airplane. Subsequently, the engines were shut down and the aircraft was evacuated. The minimum descent altitude and visibility requirements for the approach were 1,200 feet above mean sea level (msl) and 1 mile respectively. The ceiling and visibility at the time of the accident were 800 feet (about 1,650 feet msl) and 1 mile respectively. The operator noted that there were no mechanical malfunctions.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to extend the landing gear prior to touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA156
- Event ID
- 20090206X65418
- Case number
- CEN09CA156
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 27e96e86dec6ea2a88e797b284aca748baab3bd96dddf0b9784349236bf47d14; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:44:10.987Z.