ERA13LA049 · Piper PA-28R-180
World Services Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: landing gear collapse
From South Bimini Airport (MYBS) to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA049
- 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
- 0
- 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-28R-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N4534J
- Operator
- World Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South Bimini Airport (MYBS), South BiminiTo Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, 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 · landing roll
- 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 collapse
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot lowered the landing gear during the approach and the three green landing gear indicator lights illuminated. About 500 to 600 feet after the airplane touched down, the pilot applied the brakes and the right main landing gear collapsed. An annual inspection, which involved servicing and inspecting the main landing gear, was completed 10 days before the accident. Due to the inaccessibility of the airplane, a postaccident examination of the landing gear was performed 8 months after the accident, at which time a mechanic placed the airplane on jacks, conducted an operational check of the landing gear, and examined the landing gear and its components for defects. The examination revealed evidence of corrosion, binding, and a lack of lubrication in the right main landing gear down-lock; however, the airplane was stored outside for 8 months after the accident, and it is possible that the corrosion and binding of the right main landing gear were the result of its exposure to the elements during that time.
Probable cause
The collapse of the right main landing gear during landing for reasons that could not be duplicated or determined during the postaccident investigation because of the initial unavailability of the airplane after the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA049
- Event ID
- 20121108X70542
- Case number
- ERA13LA049
- 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, coordinates. 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: b54a2ad5d013f3ba6742f96664349d11c9d9b4390ebce37dbb4c35b270c8d856; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:23:09.569Z.