WPR14FA282 · Piper PA 28R-180
Piper PA 28R-180 · Accident: loss of lift while maneuvering
From French Valley Airport (F70) to French Valley Airport (F70)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA282
- 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
- 3 · 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 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
- N3723T
- Operator
- Symiczek Douglas J
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From French Valley Airport (F70), Murrieta, CATo French Valley Airport (F70), Murrieta, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Loss of lift
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A video made by a witness located in a restaurant parking lot near the top of a ridge initially shows the airplane wings level at a low altitude with a steady engine rpm and the landing gear in the retracted position. The airplane then makes about a 45-degree, left turn. The airplane subsequently levels off, flying in the direction toward the ridgeline with the landing gear in the extended position. The airplane continues at a low altitude toward the rising terrain, and then the video ends. Shortly thereafter, witnesses reported seeing smoke in the area where the airplane had disappeared from their sight. The wreckage was found about 0.32 mile southwest of the restaurant parking lot, and the airplane had impacted trees on the rising terrain. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
This airplane was equipped with a back-up landing gear extension system, which incorporates a pressure-sensing device to automatically lower the landing gear at airspeeds between about 85 and 105 mph depending upon the power setting and regardless of the position of the gear handle in the cockpit. The system can be overridden by manually holding the emergency gear lever in the raised position. About 16 years before the accident, the manufacturer issued a mandatory two-part service bulletin requiring that either (1) the back-up landing gear extension system be removed from the airplane or (2) that the owner and operator review and understand the information about the system in the airplane flight manual and Pilot's Operating Handbook, including its operation and limitations. The mechanic who conducted the airplane's most recent annual inspection reported that the airplane's back-up landing gear extension system was still operational and that it had not been disabled.
The pilot was maneuvering at a low level in an area with no suitable terrain for landing; therefore, it is likely that he did not intentionally lower the landing gear. During the steep turn, the airspeed likely decreased enough for the back-up landing gear system to engage and extend the gear. With the increased drag of the landing gear and low airspeed, the airplane did not have sufficient power or altitude to clear the rising terrain and subsequently collided with trees.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control when the landing gear unintentionally extended while maneuvering at low altitude and airspeed, which increased the airplane’s drag and decreased its ability to climb over the rising terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA282
- Event ID
- 20140706X50329
- Case number
- WPR14FA282
- 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: a2d7ad0d363f26c2abfa190d6836f9de8603bfc64ff2fef43b82776eb792e68a; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:21:06.646Z.