ANC98LA167

The certificated airline transport pilot was landing on a gravel runway during a scheduled air taxi flight. The pilot touched down on the runway with the flaps extended, but the landing gear was still retracted. The airplane received extensive damage to the airplane skin and fuselage stringers, in an area from the nose wheel gear doors to the lower wing spar fitting.

On September 17, 1998, about 1106 Alaska daylight time, a Piper PA-31-350 airplane, N4112D, sustained substantial damage during landing at the Robert Curtis Memorial Airport, Noorvik, Alaska. The airplane was being operated as a visual flight rules (VFR) scheduled domestic passenger flight under Title 14 CFR Part 135 when the accident occurred. The airplane was registered to, and operated by Bering Air Inc., Nome, Alaska. The certificated airline transport pilot, and the three passengers were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. A VFR flight plan was filed. The flight originated at the Bob Baker Memorial Airport, Kiana, Alaska, about 1056.

The Director of Operations for the operator reported the airplane, operated as Flight 622, was landing on runway 02 at Noorvik. The gravel surface runway is 2,200 feet long, and 50 feet wide. The pilot touched down on the runway with the flaps extended, but the landing gear was still retracted.

A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airworthiness inspector, Fairbanks Flight Standards District Office (FSDO), inspected the airplane at the operator's maintenance facility in Nome, on September 28, 1998. The inspection revealed extensive damage to the airplane skin and fuselage stringers, in an area from the nose wheel gear doors to the lower wing spar fitting.