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ERA10LA042 · Beriev Aircraft Company BE-103

30 Oct 2009 · Miami, FL, United States

Beriev Aircraft Company BE-103 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing

From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF) to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)

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Event

NTSB case
ERA10LA042
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

Beriev Aircraft Company BE-103

Aircraft type
Beriev BE-103
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
N13KL
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Opa Locka, FLTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Opa Locka, FL
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
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 owner/pilot was demonstrating the airplane to the two passengers, who were potential buyers. After takeoff, when the pilot retracted the landing gear, two of the three gear position indication lights signaled that the gear was retracted, but the right gear position indicated that the landing gear was still in transit. The pilot re-cycled the landing gear, and all three lights indicated that the landing gear was retracted. After an otherwise normal flight, the pilot decided to demonstrate a water landing. During touchdown, the right side of the airplane "dragged," and the left wing struck the water abnormally. The airplane remained afloat. Witnesses reported that they observed the airplane land with one landing gear extended. Postaccident examination revealed that one of the springs on the landing gear up-latch assembly was stretched, for undetermined reasons. No additional details were provided for the investigation.

Probable cause

A malfunction of the landing gear retraction/extension and indication system for undetermined reasons, which resulted in one or more components being improperly positioned for the water landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA10LA042
Event ID
20091030X65323
Case number
ERA10LA042
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: fe1696875e38e9f72068eee106d8f68cdac2bf25a56bae0944133a1c4c745f15; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:27:13.142Z.