WPR14CA143 · Grumman TMB-3E
American Airpower Heritage Flying Museum Grumman TMB-3E · Accident: landing gear collapse while taxiing
From Luke Air Force Base (LUF) to Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA143
- 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
Grumman TMB-3E Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- Grumman TMB-3
- 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
- N53503
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Luke Air Force Base (LUF), Glendale, AZTo Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU), Glendale, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1948)
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that after landing and during the turn onto a taxiway intersection, he inadvertently raised the landing gear lever by mistake, rather than the adjacent flap lever. The left landing gear collapsed, which caused the left wing tip to strike the ground. The impact resulted in substantial damage to the left wing. The pilot stated that the accident could have been prevented had he waited until he was clear of the runway, stopped, and identified the flap switch. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot inadvertently raised the landing gear lever rather than the adjacent flap level while exiting the runway which resulted in the retraction of the left main landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA143
- Event ID
- 20140321X12204
- Case number
- WPR14CA143
- 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: 7ca0d758daeb5b1f77c0a19f0e397860d3aca25c9a5521d03cee5e9f3e9a4692; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:26:03.949Z.