The pilot of the multi-engine, retractable landing gear Beech 200 reported that, shortly after departure from the airport in Eugene, Oregon, the airplane had several electrical malfunctions.
Despite multiple troubleshooting attempts, the electrical malfunctions persisted and he elected to return to the departure airport.
While on final approach to land, he lowered the landing gear lever, but the landing gear did not extend. He then tried to extend the landing gear using the emergency gear extension procedure to no avail, so he elected to land the airplane with the landing gear retracted.
The pilot told investigators that he could have missed a checklist item that led to the loss of electrical power.
Additionally, he did recall that he did not monitor the electrical load meter during the flight and did not notice if the battery ran down.
Post-accident examination of the airplane revealed that the fuselage aft of the nose landing gear was substantially damaged.
The underside of the fuselage.
A subsequent examination of the landing gear and electrical systems revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
The airplane’s 28-volt battery was disconnected and removed. When tested, it showed 20-volts in a discharged state. A fully charged 28-volt battery was substituted for a ground check of the airplane’s systems, which included the instrument panel, with no anomalies revealed.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s improper checklist use, which resulted in an electrical malfunction and subsequent gear up landing.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This November 2021 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
I read this over an hour before I posted, because I wanted to digest all that was said by the NTSB and what they found vs what the pilot had in his written report. So, yes I read almost everything they provided in the links. And I might have missed something. But the one thing he said was he was smelling smoke. And as I recall, he thought it being electrical in origin. And would have concurred with him given all the electrical things that started happening. One must understand, he had just flown into that airport because where he was going was below minimums, and so he had to wait it out. So something went wrong between that landing and the take-off to go to the intended airport.
As a result, he was trying to get this plane on the ground in a way that he wouldn’t make things worse. So knowing this and all the electrical stuff he was checking and then could not get manual extension of the gear… There was something wrong electrically. And I’m glad to see what a few other said showing that guy was an ATP with thousands of hours, and multiple type ratings. They had read the report(s). This was not just a GA pilot that wasn’t up to the task.
In his written report he even explained his approach into the airport knowing he was gear up, he leveled off, shutdown and feathered the props and landed where he would have stopped past the runway.
And I did not see anything from the NTSB showing (specifically to me) they were attempting to figure out the electrical smoke situation.
His written report is rather instructive of all the things he knew to check and do from memory.
Wow !
James Brian Potter has quite the opinion and he’s quite correct when he determines it’s value. Absolutely zero !
Ok, so I deduce you don’t approve of strict law enforcement in the sky. Perhaps you want to remove it from the highways too? Just asking…
This is definitely one of those cases where I’d read the entire “PILOT/OPERATOR AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT REPORT, NTSB FORM 6120.1”, before I comment on it.
I just hope that when I’m 76-years-old, like this 25,000 hour ATP is, that I’m still able to fly 30 hours a month…and still sharp enough to think things through-like he obviously did-in an extremely stressful situation.
I also figure that if he’s content to refer to his King Air as a “Beech 200”…that’s good enough for me.
Another fine example of ineptitude and inattention to detail required for flight. He’s lucky he didn’t suffer a serious crash resulting in the loss of his life or more importantly the lives of innocents on the ground. And he belly-flopped a nice airplane probably resulting in an insurance claim raising rates on all GA owners. I recommend temporary or permanent license suspension and serious fines for such airborne brainlessness. That’s what would happen to ground drivers who failed to turn on their headlights on in the dark or failed to notice their speedometer readings in a speed zone. The more of these similar examples I read on this list the more I’m convinced some pilots haven’t advanced mentally past the old bi-wing barn storming days: just a manual spin of the prop and maybe a glance at the compass and altimeter, and ‘off we go into the wild blue yonder…’ to crash and burn in the next cornfield.
The careless and inattentive GA hobbyists need to be reigned-in and instilled with the Fear of God to either exhibit the extremely diligent mentality safety requires or lose their licenses, sell their damaged airplanes and take up another hobby like bowling where ineptitude doesn’t involve expensive hardware and potential loss of life. Highway safety and law enforcement has been around for over a century in this country, and it’s well-past high-time it happened to the GA industry. One man’s opinion, worth what you paid for it.
Regards/J
My goodness James Brian Potter, perhaps you need some help…?
Quite the rant without ever speaking with this pilot.
No need to interview the pilot. The evidence speaks for itself.
/J
I can’t wait to hear whose fault it will be when you do something dumb
Doing something dumb? I’m not immune to that. However — piloting a heavier-than-air flying gas tank frequently has deadly and costly consequences. No excuse for doing anything ‘dumb’ in the air. /J
First off, missing something on an electrical checklist causes something to be off…not malfunction.
Secondly, they substituted the batteries but didn’t determine whether the generators actually worked.
Thirdly, they didn’t determine why the manual extension didn’t work.
And….Beech 200?
I have a feeling there’s not comprehensive investigation into fairly mundane GA accidents that wouldn’t appear lead to an AD action. And probably understandably so.
I agree with Brandon, why would the gear not extend manually ?
Had the gear come down manually we wouldn’t be discussing this.
So, we cannot afford a line of code to alert a pilot the generators are off?
The King Air B200 was first built in 1981…no code. A lot of ‘steam gauges’!
There a 3 instruments in the overhead panel , 2 volt/loadmeters , and a battery charge/discharge ammeter. It only take a few seconds to glance at them to verify that the generator are online, or not…
There are no excuses for the pilot to not know the battery was going dead.!
Forget the electrical, why didn’t the manual extension work!?
WHAT THE HaHaHa?! That is all I have to say.
You can’t just copy and paste an NTSB report and call it a story. That’s called plagiarism. And also, nobody calls it a Beech 200.
Ed, take a chill pill. The definition of Plagiarism is, “To steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own.” There’s nothing in this piece in GA News to suggest plagiarism. They are simply repeating comments from an NTSB report, and they even say that at the end of the article: “This November 2021 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.” Re-posting a report or parts of a report while giving credit to the source is not plagiarism.
The pilot looks to have not switched both generator switches to ‘on’ after starting both engines. ?
Then not checking that the battery is being charged using the battery ammeter and the 2 load/volt meters.!
My procedure on engine start is to watch for oil pressure and then the ammeter showing a positive indication, charging the battery, then check the voltmeter to see 14+ volts.
As an ‘older’ pilot myself, I use a scan of the panel first, then look at the checklist , to double check myself.