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WPR12CA393 · Beech 95-55

3 Sept 2012 · Spanoway, WA, United States Narrative disagrees

Beech 95-55 · Accident: landing gear not configured

From Friday Harbor Airport (FHR) to S44 · Spanoway, WA

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
WPR12CA393
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 95-55

Aircraft type
Beechcraft 55
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
N4QC
Operator
James Postma
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Friday Harbor Airport (FHR), Friday Harbor, WATo S44 · Spanoway, 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
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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot performed a go-around and raised the landing gear and flaps. On the second approach, he lowered the flaps partially but did not lower the landing gear. He stated that he didn’t think that the gear warning activated. After landing with the landing gear up, the pilot and his passenger were able to exit the airplane before it caught fire causing substantial damage to the cabin.

Probable cause

The pilot’s failure to lower the landing gear prior to landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR12CA393
Event ID
20120903X33429
Case number
WPR12CA393
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 2012-09-04.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 082d1ae6ccc8af2597e052c2e1a8c01892f82c541613912eabb311ca24a13ced; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:39:04.049Z.