WPR17LA061 · Beech 95 B55 (T42A) A
Beech 95 B55 (T42A) A · Accident: landing gear not configured
From O61 · Cameron Park, CA to O61 · Cameron Park, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA061
- 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
Beech 95 B55 (T42A) A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 95
- 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
- N321BJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O61 · Cameron Park, CATo O61 · Cameron Park, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1965)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he heard a loud crunch when he raised the landing gear shortly after takeoff. The pilot climbed the airplane to about 3,000 ft and attempted to lower the landing gear using both the normal and emergency gear extension procedures but was unable to do so and subsequently landed with the gear retracted, resulting in substantial damage to the lower fuselage.
Examination revealed that the landing would not extend normally. The landing gear motor was found shorted out internally and the gearbox sector gear contacted the internal stop when retracted; therefore, the emergency gear handle was not in contact with the pinion and rotated freely. The crank assembly exhibited signs of excessive wear and excessive pinion shaft end play. The American Bonanza Society Air Safety Foundation’s Landing Gear Inspection Checklist and Repair Guide stated that, “if the sector gear [end] hits the stop in either the extended or retracted position, the gearbox and motor should be removed and overhauled. The most common cause of this condition is a gear motor that is due for overhaul.”
The excessive wear within the gearbox caused the sector gear to lose contact with the pinion which caused the gear motor and emergency gear handle to rotate freely with no corresponding motion from the landing gear itself.
Probable cause
Failure of the landing gear to extend as a result of excessive wear within the landing gear gearbox and motor, which resulted in a gear-up landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA061
- Event ID
- 20170203X42626
- Case number
- WPR17LA061
- 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: 70b0ae7187edfa92332148ada7b597b2c1e55e31ecc1806d661cb6f4708cfad3; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:59:30.692Z.