Preliminary Reports
No Injuries in King Air Gear Collapse
Raytheon B200, March 12, 2024, Billings, Montana
Neither pilot was injured when the gear collapsed during an emergency landing following a total loss of electrical power. The Part 91 positioning flight departed Billings shortly before 08:00 local time on a planned 17-minute trip to pick up passengers at Colstrip, Montana. The starting and departure sequences appeared normal, but shortly after takeoff a cascade of annunciator warnings alerted the pilots to “a total loss of electrical power.”
The safety pilot found no electrical failure checklist in the flight manual and instead began the checklist for manual gear extension. The flight returned to Billings and was cleared to land via light signals. The pilot entered the pattern on an extended base leg, pulled the landing gear circuit breaker, and “unstowed the emergency landing extension bar,” using it to pump the gear down “about 30 times.” Without electrical power, the gear position indicators were inoperative. The King Air touched down with flaps retracted; in the pilot’s words, “the main landing gear buckled, followed by the nose gear,” and both propellers struck the runway.
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