WPR09LA341 · Piper PA-46-310P
Piper PA-46-310P · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) on approach
From Buchanan Field (CCR) to Buchanan Field (CCR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA341
- 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-46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N330HT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CATo Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CA
- 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
- Approach
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilots encountered smoke in the cockpit originating from the area of the copilot's rudder pedals. The pilots performed the emergency procedures for an electrical fire, which included shutting down the electrical systems. The smoke seemed to initially subside, but then gradually intensified before the engine lost power. The pilots were unable to restart the engine and decided to concentrate on making an off-airport landing. While landing in a plowed field, the nosewheel collapsed almost immediately. Postaccident examination revealed extensive fire damage to the rear of the engine and to the firewall. The nose gear hydraulic actuator flexible hose assembly also sustained extensive fire damage consistent with being near the source of the fire. Further inspection found that the nose gear hydraulic down line remained attached at both attachment fittings. The flexible hose assembly installed on the nose gear actuator uses an AN-style B-nut fitting. The internally threaded hose socket is screwed onto the end of the hose, and the B-nut is secured to the actuator fitting by an externally threaded nipple. Closer examination of the hydraulic line fitting where it attaches to the actuator revealed a crack running along the entire length of the socket. The hose remained inserted into the socket, but because of the crack, the socket fitting could be turned by hand on the hose. The nose gear actuator hydraulic line was then removed. The hose end was easily pulled out and separated from the socket. The manufacturer's identification band indicated that the hose assembly was manufactured in the third quarter of 1991. A review of the scheduled maintenance section of the PA-46-310P maintenance manual in the landing gear group section states in part, to "Replace flexible hoses as required, but no later than 1,000 hours of operation or eight years and at engine overhaul". Although the identification band on the hose assembly indicated that it was manufactured in 1991, no log book entry was located indicating that the hose assembly had ever been replaced.
Probable cause
The failure of the landing gear hydraulic line socket, which resulted in a hydraulic leak and in-flight fire. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the owner and/or maintenance facility to comply with the maintenance manual hose replacement schedule.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA341
- Event ID
- 20090714X52517
- Case number
- WPR09LA341
- 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. 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: ba64d4bca65c75c47a33036928db022b958fa549ec41ed26f694d7ee824d05fa; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:50:51.229Z.