CHI95LA073 · Cessna 421C
Cessna 421C · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF) to Tri State Steuben County Airport (ANQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA073
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Cessna 421C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N421AW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF), Louisville, KYTo Tri State Steuben County Airport (ANQ)
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Main gear collapsed
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear shock absorbing strut › Overload
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ON THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR AND THEN THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR. THE PILOT SAID THE AIRPLANE PULLED TO THE RIGHT AFTER ITS RIGHT TIRE HAD TOUCHED DOWN. A PASSENGER SAID THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR TOUCHED DOWN HARD. ITS TOUCH DOWN WAS FOLLOWED BY A 'THUD' SOUND. AFTER THE THUD SOUND THE RIGHT WING LOWERED UNTIL IT TOUCHED THE RUNWAY. THE ON-SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED OVERLOAD FRACTURES ON THE LANDING GEAR'S SHOCK STRUT SLEEVE AND METAL SHAVING IN THE STRUT'S LOWER ATTACH FITTING HOLE. THE LEADING EDGE DEICING BOOTS ON THE WING AND HORIZONTAL STABILIZER HAD 1/4 TO 1/2 INCH OF ICE COVERING ABOUT 50 PERCENT OF THEIR SURFACE.
Probable cause
OVERLOAD FAILURE OF THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR SHOCK STRUT SLEEVE FOR AN UNKNOWN REASON.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA073
- Event ID
- 20001207X02840
- Case number
- CHI95LA073
- 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 1995-01-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6c90c683b32c4a367c0d0186b3a9b74d62c5aa8c8aedd8e110718a8e8a12fead; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:19:11.247Z.