NTSB CAROL · Event
Event WPR20CA286
Registry · N926TA
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
NORTHROP F-5E
Year of manufacture
1975 · 45 years old at event
Engine
GE J85 SER
Seats / Engines
1 seats · 2 engines
Last airworthiness date
20220701
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S ACD61E
Registrant of record
TASLO LLC
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot's failure to complete the pre-landing checklist due to a distraction which resulted in a gear-up landing.
Factual narrative
The operator reported that while the pilot was in the airport traffic pattern, he was distracted by a radio transmission on the common traffic advisory frequency from additional landing traffic at the airport. The operator stated that the pilot continued his approach to landing, with the landing gear still retracted, having not completed the landing checklist. While on final approach, the pilot received a "terrain, terrain" alert, and perceived he was slightly low, and added power. Subsequently, the airplane landed gear up. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the horizontal stabilizer. The operator reported that there were no pre-accident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The operator reported that while the pilot was in the airport traffic pattern, he was distracted by a radio transmission on the common traffic advisory frequency from additional landing traffic at the airport. The operator stated that the pilot continued his approach to landing, with the landing gear still retracted, having not completed the landing checklist. While on final approach, the pilot received a "terrain, terrain" alert, and perceived he was slightly low, and added power. Subsequently, the airplane landed gear up. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the horizontal stabilizer. The operator reported that there were no pre-accident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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).
- C Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Forgotten action/omission-Pilot - C
- C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Use of checklist-Pilot - C
- — Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Attention-Pilot
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2020_WPR20CA286.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
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.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Other
Weather Research and Forecasting Model Sensitivity Comparisons for Warm Season Convective Initiation
Mesoscale weather conditions can significantly affect the space launch and landing operations at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS).
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2016 · Conference paper
Cirrus Aircraft Update
Update on the Piston Fleet New innovation in flight training & operations Update on the SF50 Vision jet
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗