Report: Landing gear not lowered in Mich. crash

Federal investigators said the landing gear wasn't lowered on a single-engine plane that crashed last month into a southern Michigan city park, killing three people. The Detroit Free Press reported that the preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board also notes that the plane's flaps were in the retracted position March 29. The report didn't offer an explanation. A final NTSB report is expected later.

AP Wire

Apr 27, 2011

Rick Howell was flying to nearby Custer Airport from a business meeting in Pennsylvania when the plane crashed about 35 miles southwest of Detroit and just north of the Ohio state line. The auto-parts business owner and two of his employees at Toledo, Ohio-based Conforming Matrix Corp. died.

They had taken off from an airport in Bedford County, Pa., earlier in the day.