CEN10CA261 · Swearingen SA-226AT
McNeely Charter Service Swearingen SA-226AT · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (KOPF) to West Memphis Municipal Airport (KAWM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA261
- 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
Swearingen SA-226AT
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-226
- 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
- N427SP
- Operator
- Mcneely Charter Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (KOPF), Miami, FLTo West Memphis Municipal Airport (KAWM), West Memphis, AR
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two airline transport pilots were conducting a full-stop landing at their home airport. The pilot in the left seat was flying the airplane and the pilot in the right seat was conducting an Initial Operating Experience (IOE) assessment. The airplane was put on a 5 to 8 mile final as the pilot read and quickly completed the checklist. The airplane was configured with full flaps and when the pilot went to actuate the landing gear he diverted his attention to his deteriorating airspeed and glide path deviation. The pilot made the necessary correction to stabilize the approach. At 500 feet above the ground, the pilot glanced over to the gear indicator and thought he saw "three down." The pilot continued the approach and the airplane landed with the gear in the retracted position. Neither pilot reported hearing the gear warning horn which should have actuated when the pilot selected greater than half flaps and the gear was not properly configured.
Probable cause
Failure of both pilots to ensure that the airplane was properly configured for landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA261
- Event ID
- 20100521X90218
- Case number
- CEN10CA261
- 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: 3bf0b76a529cccbdfd76d752401f478e22c77ccefce68f397f4dd4ca462846f3; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:09:58.528Z.