CEN12LA434 · Beech A36
Hatfield Enterprises Beech A36 · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN) to Lakefront Airport (NEW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA434
- 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
Beech A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N136EH
- Operator
- Hatfield Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN), Shreveport, LATo Lakefront Airport (NEW), New Orleans, LA
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident pilot reported that he extended the airplane’s landing gear and observed three green lights indicating that the gear was extended before landing. The pilot stated that the airplane touched down, bounced, and then settled on the runway again. The pilot said that during the second touchdown “it felt as thought the gear was not sound,” and he tried unsuccessfully to perform a go-around. The airplane skidded to a stop on the runway.
When the accident airplane was removed from the runway after the accident, its landing gear was found in the retracted position, and ground scars on the runway and damage to the airplane’s propellers, landing gear doors, and belly were consistent with the landing gear not being extended before landing. Further, a witness in an airplane flying abeam the accident airplane during its approach to land reported that he did not see its landing gear extended. Postaccident examination revealed no indication of preimpact malfunction or anomaly that would have precluded normal operation of the landing gear. Although an intermittent landing gear horn anomaly was noted during postaccident examination, it could not be determined if that anomaly existed before the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to lower the landing gear before touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA434
- Event ID
- 20120712X21254
- Case number
- CEN12LA434
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-06-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4304e07cd87d83884f9bf0338f315c096f7fcf2fdc56dd016c4a91a68962b784; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:52:09.929Z.