WPR15LA264 · Douglas A4N
Douglas A4N · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Mesa Gateway Airport (IWA) to Mesa Gateway Airport (IWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA264
- 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
Douglas A4N
- Aircraft type
- Douglas A4
- 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
- CFGZT
- Operator
- Top Aces
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mesa Gateway Airport (IWA), Phoenix, AZTo Mesa Gateway Airport (IWA), Phoenix, AZ
- 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
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a test flight. The pilot reported that, toward the end of the flight, he was scheduled to test the emergency generator. When the generator was deployed, the fuel gauge indicated below "0" remaining fuel, and all of the warning/advisory lights illuminated for a few seconds. The pilot subsequently chose to return to the airport to land.
The pilot reported that, while on the downwind leg, as he was configuring the airplane for a planned drag-chute landing, he became distracted by something in the cockpit that disrupted his checklist flow, but he could not explain what distracted him. As he turned the airplane onto the base leg, he checked the flap and spoiler positions and the landing gear wheel indicators. He noted that he saw three "jittering wheels" but that the gear indicators were difficult to see due to the sun angle and shadows. The pilot then landed the airplane and deployed the drag chute. The airplane slowed very rapidly and came to a rest on the drop tank, which ruptured, and a fire ensued. The pilot egressed from the airplane and noticed that the landing gear were not down.
A postaccident examination of the landing gear system revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that the pilot's distraction during the downwind leg and his difficulty seeing the landing gear indicators led to his failure to extend the landing gear before landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to extend the landing gear before landing. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s distraction during the downwind leg and his difficulty seeing the landing gear indicators due to the sun angle and shadows.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA264
- Event ID
- 20150922X15659
- Case number
- WPR15LA264
- 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: f9d2b91322a7d31f1fc3dbcf7bae6a29e1fe3270260f2681dad21f42d70a80d0; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:47:54.583Z.