WPR13LA060 · Piper PA30
Piper PA30 · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure during initial climb
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA060
- 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 PA30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA30
- 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
- N8747Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Electrical system malfunction/failure
- 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, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he had not flown the airplane in over 3 months. He started the right engine on external power, unplugged the external power, and then started the left engine off of the airplane's electrical system, with the ammeter showing a normal charge rate. Immediately after takeoff and while the landing gear was being retracted, the airplane experienced a total electrical failure; all attempts to restore electrical power were unsuccessful. The pilot then performed the emergency landing gear extension procedure, which he said included pulling the landing gear transmission motor release lever and pushing the lever full forward. The pilot subsequently placed the emergency gear extension handle in the left socket because it was in the vertical position, which should have indicated to the pilot that the landing gear had not completely retracted and that the landing gear transmission motor's force was not disengaged. He then most likely secured the handle and rotated it forward to complete the gear extension; however, due to the electrical failure, he had no way of confirming that the landing gear was locked down. After relaying his situation to the departure airport's air traffic control tower, the pilot was cleared to land. Upon landing, the airplane's nose gear slowly collapsed, and then both main landing gear collapsed. The airplane subsequently slid off of the right side of the runway and came to rest in a rock-covered area, which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane. Although the electrical system could have been compromised due to the electrical load required during the landing gear retraction because of insufficient battery power, it could not be determined if this caused the electrical system anomaly. During the emergency landing gear extension procedure, the forward rotation of the landing gear handle in the left socket likely prevented it from reaching its full-forward travel to lock the gear down because the pilot likely failed to fully disengage the landing gear transmission motor's forces from the system.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly inhibit the landing gear transmission motor consistent with the emergency landing gear extension procedure, which precluded the full extension of the landing gear. Contributing to the accident was the airplane's electrical system anomaly, which rendered the gear position indicator inoperative.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA060
- Event ID
- 20121129X84924
- Case number
- WPR13LA060
- 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: a2c3da01802193df59a5a69d3112ac230c0fc9f1db3c576f52e10e457304885c; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:30:00.298Z.