CEN12LA444 · Piper PA-44-180
University of North Dakota Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Grand Forks International Airport (KGFK) to Grand Forks International Airport (KGFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA444
- 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-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N580ND
- Operator
- University of North Dakota
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Forks International Airport (KGFK), Grand Forks, NDTo Grand Forks International Airport (KGFK), Grand Forks, ND
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot receiving instruction reported that during the downwind leg, after the flight instructor had simulated a single-engine failure of the twin-engine airplane, he began to fall behind on completing required checklist items, and, as result, he inadvertently forgot to extend the landing gear. He recalled hearing the landing gear warning horn while on the crosswind leg but reportedly was too distracted with flying the airplane to extend the landing gear at that point. He reported seeing sparks and hearing a grinding noise upon touchdown, at which time he also recalled hearing the landing gear warning horn. The flight instructor recalled that the airplane tail impacted the runway shortly after the pilot receiving instruction reduced engine power during the landing flare. The flight instructor noted that he heard the landing gear warning horn shortly after the airplane made contact with the runway. The airplane slid 200 to 300 feet on the lower fuselage before coming to a stop. A postaccident examination revealed that the landing gear selector handle was in the "UP" position. The landing gear extended normally into a down-and-locked position after the airplane was lifted off the ground and the landing gear selector handle was placed into the "DOWN" position. The operator reported that there were no mechanical anomalies that would have prevented the landing gear from extending normally.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction's failure to extend the landing gear and the flight instructor's failure to adequately monitor his student's actions during the approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA444
- Event ID
- 20120715X11455
- Case number
- CEN12LA444
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-07-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 733e8b07a5280a56ca15a39436a71da7a2a044bcf2ae3e94402725aa55d6e74c; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:53:54.734Z.