WPR09LA372 · Piper PA-30
Walla Walla University Piper PA-30 · Accident: landing gear collapse
From Walla Walla, WA to Walla Walla, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA372
- 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-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N7504Y
- Operator
- Walla Walla University
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walla Walla, WATo Walla Walla, WA
- 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 · landing roll
- 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 collapse
- 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 pilot reported that he stayed in the airport traffic pattern, and completed one takeoff and landing. Prior to the second landing, the landing gear was down, all indications appeared normal, and he did not hear an audible alert when he reduced power for landing. As the airplane touched down, the landing gear collapsed, which resulted in substantial damage to the wing. The pilot stated that he noticed smoke coming from the circuit breaker panel on the floor as he exited the airplane. The operator reported that they had previously been having trouble with the landing gear circuit breaker popping during gear extension and retraction. Six flight hours prior to the accident, they had replaced numerous landing gear system components including the landing gear motor circuit breaker. Ground and flight tests had been successfully completed without a recurrence, which led them to believe that the situation had been resolved. Post accident examination of the airplane revealed that the landing gear motor circuit breaker had tripped, which prevented the landing gear from fully locking in the down position. The landing gear warning circuit is powered by the landing gear motor circuit, and would not activate with the circuit breaker tripped.
Probable cause
A tripped landing gear motor circuit breaker, which prevented the gear from fully locking in the down position, and subsequent collapse during landing. Contributing to the accident was the disabled landing gear warning horn.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA372
- Event ID
- 20090727X81723
- Case number
- WPR09LA372
- 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: de3912444574cab76b0b4931b3d613aae77bc5ad654ff07f49cb312ef8569938; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:02:24.336Z.