CEN19LA142 · Piper PA44 180
Airgo Piper PA44 180 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while maneuvering
From Centralia Municipal Airport (ENL) to Centralia Municipal Airport (ENL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA142
- 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 PA44 180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA44
- 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
- N39693
- Operator
- Airgo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centralia Municipal Airport (ENL), Centralia, ILTo Centralia Municipal Airport (ENL), Centralia, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1978)
- 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
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While performing the Before Landing checklist following an instructional flight in the multiengine airplane, the flight instructor and pilot receiving instruction noticed that the nose landing gear light did not illuminate when the gear was extended, and the nose gear appeared only partially extended. The pilots performed the emergency gear extension procedure, which was unsuccessful, and subsequently attempted maneuvers to extend the gear; however, the nose gear would not extend. The pilots returned to the airport and landed in the soft, wet grass next to the runway, during which the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage and empennage.
Postaccident examination of the nose landing gear system and emergency gear extension system did not reveal any anomalies that could have resulted in the failure of the nose gear to extend; however, a detailed examination of the system was not possible due to the extent of the impact damage.
Probable cause
The failure of the nose landing gear to extend for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA142
- Event ID
- 20190515X30948
- Case number
- CEN19LA142
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-05-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fa43d589d4cf210de5086d8bf00c2dcbe39ed099cf98fb3f162ad359509e90e8; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:00:33.637Z.