CEN09CA169 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during initial climb
From Mineral Wells Regional Airport (MWL) to Mineral Wells Regional Airport (MWL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA169
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5451P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mineral Wells Regional Airport (MWL), Mineral Wells, TXTo Mineral Wells Regional Airport (MWL), Mineral Wells, TX
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While departing the airport, the airplane's landing gear system failed to fully retract when actuated by the private pilot. Several attempts were made by the pilot to fully lower the landing gear, including the use of the "emergency landing gear system." The pilot elected to return to the airport and land in the grass parallel to the runway. During the landing the airplane's firewall was damaged. An inspection conducted on the airplane revealed that the wire cables which operate the landing gear were insufficiently lubricated during the previous annual inspection which was accomplished 18 days prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the airframe and power plant mechanic to ensure proper lubrication of wire cables in the landing gear system during the annual inspection which precluded safe operation of the landing gear system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA169
- Event ID
- 20090218X50531
- Case number
- CEN09CA169
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-02-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2d23167df7de018eb4785a5bc7342278cf15986d0b373f4ed99e159771f83457; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:45:35.756Z.