American Corp Aviation Rockwell 681 accident
Rockwell 681 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Show Low Regional Airport (SOW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA163
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Rockwell 681
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell 681
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N78CH
- Operator
- American Corp Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Show Low Regional Airport (SOW), Show Low, AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Hydraulic system › No pressure
- Hydraulic system, line › Corroded
- Landing gear, emergency extension assembly › Corroded
- Landing gear, emergency extension assembly › No pressure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot moved the landing gear selector switch to the down position; however, the landing gear did not extend. The pilot used the emergency gear down system; however, both main landing gear extended only partially and the main wheels failed to rotate to the streamlined position. The main gear collapsed on landing, resulting in damage to the lower fuselage bulkheads and gear attach structure. No hydraulic fluid was found in the system lines, and no leaks detected around the landing gear wells. The nitrogen system pressure was measured at 50 psi; the normal system pressure is 425 to 525 psi. Review of the hydraulic system lines revealed a metal line ruptured with hydraulic fluid saturating the immediate area. The maintenance records indicated the ruptured line was an original equipment item and at least 24 years old. A leak was found in the nitrogen system lines in the wing center section crossover line. Corrosion pitting was observed in several places on both of the lines.
Probable cause
the failure of the hydraulic and nitrogen system pressure lines, due to an inadequate maintenance inspection program, which failed to detect the corrosion condition of the lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA163
- Event ID
- 20001206X00934
- Case number
- LAX94LA163
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-03-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b22fc0da0e66a05eb51027aa52c16861be78e5c4ff1f067dd33591e9cf77187c; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:19:57.822Z.