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Atlas / NTSB / ERA20LA259

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA20LA259

2020-07-22 Montgomery, Alabama, United States Airport · MGM None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N425BJ

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BEECH 400

Year of manufacture

1987 · 33 years old at event

Engine

P&W CANADA JT15D-5

Seats / Engines

9 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

20060414

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A50E54

Registrant of record

DODSON INTERNATIONAL PARTS INC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

Landing with the left main landing gear retracted due to the failure of the landing gear control unit, which resulted in substantial damage.

Factual narrative

On July 22, 2020, about 1100 central daylight time, a Beech 400, N425BJ, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident at Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM), Montgomery, Alabama. The two pilots and one passenger were not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. According to the pilot, after extending the landing gear for landing, he did not receive a positive indication that the left main landing gear was down and locked. The pilot referred to the airplane’s emergency procedures for manual landing gear extension, but this procedure failed to extend the gear. The pilot then elected to shut down the left engine and land with the left main landing gear retracted. During landing, the pilot was able to keep the airplane on the runway surface. The left wing was substantially damaged from contact with the runway surface. During postaccident examination by a mechanic, the landing gear and doors would not retract or extend normally after multiple attempts. Troubleshooting identified the landing gear control unit as the possible source of the anomalies. The landing gear control unit was replaced, and the landing gear functioned normally. The pilot did not receive a positive indication that the left main landing gear was down and locked. After completing all applicable emergency checklists, he elected to shut down the left engine and land with the left main landing gear retracted. The left wing was substantially damaged during landing. During postaccident examination the landing gear control unit was replaced, and the landing gear functioned normally. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Gear extension and retract sys-Failure

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2020_ERA20LA259.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗