CEN20CA212
2020-06-04 · Corpus Cristi, Texas, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport CRP
Current FAA registration · N533K
- Make / Model
- PIPER PA-28R-201T
- Year of manufacture
- 1977 · 43 years old at event
- Engine
- CONT MOTOR TSIO-360 SER (225 hp)
- Seats / Engines
- 4 seats · 1 engine
- ADS-B equipped
- Yes — Mode-S A6BC73
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's failure to utilze the emergency landing gear extension procedure after a short-circuit within the normal landing gear system, which resulted in a landing gear collapse during landing.
Factual narrative
The commercial pilot reported that during a visual approach for landing at the destination airport, the landing gear position indicator did not indicate that the landing gear was down and locked after it was selected down. The pilot reported he requested a fly by the air traffic control tower, which confirmed the landing gear was extended and cleared the airplane to land. During landing rollout, the landing gear collapsed, and the airplane impacted the runway surface resulting in structural damage to the external longerons on the bottom of the fuselage. During recovery of the airplane, it was noted the landing gear circuit breaker was popped. The circuit breaker was reset, the master switch selected on, and the landing gear was lowered using the landing gear handle. A postaccident functional test of the landing gear using the normal and emergency extension procedures revealed the landing gear extended without incident. The pilot further reported that after maintenance personnel removed the cockpit multifunction displays, he found a piece of screw/nut on the contacts of the landing gear control handle behind the instrument panel, which most-likely created a short-circuit and caused the landing gear circuit breaker to pop. The pilot did not use the airplane's emergency landing gear extension procedure to extend the landing gear during the accident flight. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.
- — Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Gear extension and retract sys-Malfunction
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Use of checklist-Pilot
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2020_CEN20CA212.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
- TallyAero Live Wire Aviation press
- NTSB CAROL Agency ↗
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- Pilots of America Community ↗
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (maintenance). All research papers
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2026 · Journal article (IJAAA) From Reactive to Predictive: A hybrid Trust-Mediated Adoption Framework for Data-Driven Maintenance in Distributed-Authority Aviation Environments
Modern aviation maintenance operates within increasingly data-intensive technological environments, yet the operational integration of predictive maintenance into routine decision-making remains incon…
- Semantic Scholar 2026 · Article (Reliability Engineering & System Safety) Understanding human error in military aviation maintenance: The role of Performance shaping factors, cognitive workload and error orientation
- Semantic Scholar 2025 · Article (Applied Sciences) Decision-Making Framework for Aviation Safety in Predictive Maintenance Strategies
The implementation of predictive maintenance (PM) in aviation presents unique challenges due to strict safety requirements, complex operational environments, and regulatory constraints.
- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (Defence Science Journal) Modelling of Human Factors in Aviation Maintenance Using HFACS ME Human Factors Analysis and Classification System Maintenance Extension and Bayesian Network
Aircraft maintenance is a complex task involving a skilled human workforce, spare parts, and various other resources. Human factors are an inherent element of the human workforce.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER) A New Trajectory in UAV Safety: Leveraging Reinforcement Learning for Distance Maintenance Under Wind Variations
In the field of aviation, safety is a critical cornerstone, and the operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems is deeply connected with this principle.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER) Low-Resource Automatic Speech Recognition Domain Adaptation – A Case-Study in Aviation Maintenance
With timeliness and efficiency being critical in the aviation maintenance industry, the need has been growing for smart technological solutions that optimize and streamline the different underlying ta…