ERA25LA343 · Beech 95-B55 (T42A)
St. Pete Aviation Services Beech 95-B55 (T42A) · Accident: landing gear not configured
From an unrecorded airport to Punta Gorda Airport (PGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA343
- 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
Beech 95-B55 (T42A)
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N8313N
- Operator
- ST Pete Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Punta Gorda Airport (PGD), Punta Gorda, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 57 years (built 1968)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the multi-engine airplane departed from the airplane’s home airport on a cross-country flight. The pilot stated that the takeoff and initial climb were normal; however, shortly after departure, he noted that the alternators went offline and the battery began to discharge. The pilot attempted to restore the alternators by resetting the switches and field circuit breakers. Unable to regain alternator functionality, the pilot elected to abort the flight and return to the departure airport. The pilot reported that he attempted to extend the landing gear and heard the gear motor operate. During the return to the airport, the pilot reported additional electrical issues, such as the airplane’s primary flight display turning off and rebooting. While on final approach to the airport, the pilot reported that the landing gear down and locked light was not illuminated; however, the mechanical tab on the floorboard indicated the landing gear was down. Upon touchdown, the landing gear collapsed, and the airplane skidded down the runway to a stop resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage. Surveillance images of the airplane as it was on final approach revealed that the nose landing gear was not extended and the main landing gear appeared to be at least partially extended. Had the pilot coordinated with the control tower to observe the landing gear position, it is possible that they would have been able to alert the pilot that all of the landing gear were not fully extended. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the landing gear motor circuit breaker had tripped and that the landing gear was capable of being extended and locked in place using the emergency extension system. The examination also revealed that both alternator belts were in place on the alternators, and the battery had sufficient voltage to operate the airplane’s electrical system. Since the landing gear was able to be extended using the emergency extension system, it is likely that the landing gear circuit breaker had tripped due to an electrical wiring issue or an issue with the landing gear motor.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to extend the landing gear prior to landing. Contributing to the accident was a malfunction of the landing gear’s electrical retraction/extension system, which tripped the circuit breaker.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA343
- Event ID
- 20250911200984
- Case number
- ERA25LA343
- 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, 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: 24d75ab84206aeddfbface3f26696ebcee61fddded7f226a284874e043556e74; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:19:50.215Z.