CEN13LA141 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: landing gear collapse
From North Texas Regional Airport Perrin Field (KGYI) to McKinney National Airport (KTKI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA141
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6195P
- Operator
- Turek Tom T
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Texas Regional Airport Perrin Field (KGYI), Denison, TXTo McKinney National Airport (KTKI), McKinney, TX
- 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 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he attempted to contact the air traffic control tower for a landing clearance but was unable to. He circled in the area to troubleshoot the problem and determined that the radios were not transmitting. The air traffic controllers in the tower saw the airplane circling and radioed that the pilot was cleared to land. The pilot turned toward the airport, at which time a total loss of electrical power occurred. The pilot and passenger, who was the airplane owner, were unable to identify the cause of the electrical failure. The pilot selected the landing gear to the down position, and the passenger performed the landing gear emergency extension checklist. The pilot reported hearing the gear extend and asked the passenger if the gear appeared to be down and locked; the passenger replied yes. The landing gear collapsed when the airplane touched down, and the airplane slid about 200 feet before coming to rest. A postaccident visual examination of the landing gear did not reveal any mechanical failure or malfunction that would have prevented the gear from locking in the extended position. An annual inspection of the airplane had been completed about 1 month before the accident flight during which new bungee cords were installed on the landing gear, in accordance with an airworthiness directive. The landing gear system, including the emergency extension system, was reportedly operationally checked during the annual inspection without any anomalies noted. Due to damage sustained in the accident, the landing gear could not be functionally tested; therefore, the reason for its collapse could not be determined. Although the airplane battery did not hold a charge during postaccident testing, the alternator functioned properly. Electrical power should have been available from the alternator once the engine was running, regardless of the condition of the battery. The reason for the electrical system failure could not be determined.
Probable cause
Collapse of the landing gear for reasons that could not be determined because visual examination did not reveal any mechanical malfunction or failure that would have prevented the gear from locking in the extended position and postaccident damage precluded functional testing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA141
- Event ID
- 20130123X70951
- Case number
- CEN13LA141
- 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. 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: 7abaeabeca7efe0d44ffbaa1d9a465a684df2260ebe44ddde2b70a395bda3338; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:48:04.587Z.