WPR17LA076 · Piper AEROSTAR 602P
Piper AEROSTAR 602P · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Sandpoint Airport (SZT) to Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA076
- 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
Piper AEROSTAR 602P
- Aircraft type
- Piper AEROSTAR 602
- 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
- N301FW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sandpoint Airport (SZT), Sandpoint, IDTo Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot reported that, nearing the airport at the conclusion of a personal cross-country flight, he performed the before landing checklist. When he extended the landing gear, he noted that only the nose and right main landing gear (MLG) lights were illuminated, which indicated that the left MLG was not locked in the extended position. He then climbed and performed the emergency gear extension checklist, but the left MLG still did not extend. The pilot chose to continue flying to exhaust the fuel in the left tank before attempting to land. During landing, the airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing and impacted two taxiway signs before coming to rest. A witness reported that it appeared that the left-side tire was sitting against the inside gear door and not fully extended.
The pilot reported that the accident flight was the first flight after a recent owner-assisted annual inspection, during which the left landing gear control valve was resealed with new "O" rings. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the right MLG side brace was broken, which would prevent gear retraction. During a partial gear-swing test, the MLG gear started to retract; however, immediately thereafter, the left side push-pull rod assembly that connected the gear door actuator to the MLG and door control valve failed and broke in half, likely due to impact damage.
The push-pull rod and control valve were subsequently examined, and there was no evidence of any preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The reason for the failure of the left MLG to fully extend could not be determined.
Probable cause
The failure of the left main landing gear to fully extend for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination and testing did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA076
- Event ID
- 20170311X85300
- Case number
- WPR17LA076
- 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: bb58a0d539333bd311af5350ef14126d35c015ba1f4583c9febf59cbbc1d7bbc; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:05:23.246Z.