Central Air Southwest Aero Commander 500 - B accident
Aero Commander 500 - B · Accident: landing gear not configured
From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA065
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Aero Commander 500 - B
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 500
- 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
- N917GT
- Operator
- Central Air Southwest
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TXTo Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB), Lubbock, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 reported that, as the airplane approached the landing airport, he descended through windshear and turbulence before he turned on final; a strong southwest wind caused him to overshoot the final approach segment. The airplane was a "little high and fast," and he was encountering windshear bumps. He reduced engine power and maneuvered back to the runway centerline. He slowed the airplane to landing speed while applying half and then full flaps. The airplane subsequently touched down with the landing gear partially extended. The pilot did not recall seeing the landing gear position lights illuminated green; he further stated that he recited, but did not perform, the landing gear check because he was "very focused" on controlling the airplane through the windshear. He thought he landed the airplane with the gear up, and, at some point during the slide, he instinctively activated the gear handle. He said that he thought that he did not extend the landing gear. Postaccident examination of the landing gear system revealed no evidence of mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to complete a landing checklist and extend the landing gear, which resulted in a gear-up landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's diverted attention to the weather during approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA065
- Event ID
- 20131120X22428
- Case number
- CEN14LA065
- 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 2013-10-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3a05be27a80d38802d19d987091c9a44eafa1039e5f4b504fcdcfa9e77d8145a; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:08:04.268Z.