GAA18CA171 · Beech 76
Fox Valley Technical College Beech 76 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Wittman Regional Airport (OSH) to Wittman Regional Airport (OSH)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA171
- 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 76
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 76
- 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
- N969RA
- Operator
- Fox Valley Technical College
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wittman Regional Airport (OSH), Oshkosk, WITo Wittman Regional Airport (OSH), Oshkosk, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1980)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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 flight instructor reported that he was providing multi-engine instruction to a private pilot who held a single engine airplane rating; the airplane had retractable landing gear. During the pilot's first simulated engine failure, single-engine approach to land, he did not extend the landing gear, and the flight instructor did not verify that the landing gear were extended. During the approach, both pilots heard the landing gear warning horn but disregarded it because of the nature of the maneuver. The airplane touched down on the runway with the landing gear retracted.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the lower fuselage.
According to the Airplane Flying Handbook, page 1-6 Use of Checklist: The importance of consistent use of checklists cannot be overstated in pilot training. A major objective in primary flight training is to establish habit patterns that will serve pilots well throughout their entire flying career. The flight instructor must promote a positive attitude toward the use of checklists, and the student pilot must realize its importance.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to extend the landing gear and the flight instructor’s failure to ensure that the landing gear were extended during landing. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s and the instructor’s improper use of checklist.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA171
- Event ID
- 20180321X34223
- Case number
- GAA18CA171
- 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: d479f94c3f60a79fcfca559160a64b62f59252e4dad183167e71180193e0e7d2; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:41:06.027Z.