CEN25LA016 · Piper PA-30
Leaseair Piper PA-30 · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Monett Regional Airport (HFJ) to Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN25LA016
- 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
- 0
- 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 PA-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N7577Y
- Operator
- Leaseair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monett Regional Airport (HFJ), Monett, MOTo Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF), Springfield, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1964)
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was receiving flight instruction and was practicing an instrument approach while utilizing a view-limiting device. The pilot and flight instructor stated that while on final approach, the landing gear lever was lowered. The pilot could not see if the landing gear was extended but he did verify that the green landing gear indicating light was illuminated; then asked the flight instructor to verify that the landing gear was extended. The flight instructor stated that due to the single landing gear indicating light and the brightness of the conditions outside, he could not tell if the landing gear was extended or not. He assumed the landing gear was down because of the increased drag on the airplane. Upon landing, the airplane scraped along the runway and smoke came into the cockpit. The airplane came to rest upright on the runway, and the pilot and flight instructor exited through the door without further incident. The flight instructor said that after the accident the landing gear handle was in the down position and the landing gear circuit breaker was popped. Postaccident examination revealed substantial damage to the lower fuselage. The landing gear circuit breaker was reset, and the landing gear was raised and lowered without issue. The circuit breaker did not trip again during the examination. The landing gear up warning horn did not sound when tested by reducing the manifold pressure below 12 inches. Instead, a landing gear indicating light flashed. The airplane owner said that the landing gear warning horn was not working when he purchased the airplane, and the light was the only indicator to signal that the landing gear was not down. Maintenance records indicated that an annual inspection was complete in September 2024; the landing gear was tested and found to be operating properly during the inspection.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s inability to confirm landing gear position before landing due to the sun glare which resulted in gear up landing. Contributing to the accident was an undetected tripped circuit breaker for the landing gear and the inoperative gear warning horn.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN25LA016
- Event ID
- 20241017195331
- Case number
- CEN25LA016
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: 39601624d46026d51aa5a8fa5884a28a6bcb94a5cbb277380402693580d79bde; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:23:32.325Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. Misspelled city; HFJ is Monett Municipal Airport, Monett, MO.