LAX95LA232 · Cessna 401A
Cessna 401A · Accident: gear collapsed while taxiing
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to MMSB · Cabo San Lucas
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA232
- 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 401A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 401
- 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
- N444RJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY)To MMSB · Cabo San Lucas
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- 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
- Wing, wing rib › Cracked
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS MAKING A RIGHT-HAND TURN IN THE RUN-UP AREA AT A SLOW SPEED WHEN THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED. THE SIDE BRACE FOR THE MAIN LANDING GEAR IS ATTACHED TO A CASTING, WHICH IN TURN IS BOLTED TO THE INBOARD WING RIB IN THE LANDING GEAR WHEEL WELL. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE WING RIB WEB CRACKED AROUND THE CASTING, WHICH ALLOWED THE SIDE BRACE TO MOVE AND THE LANDING GEAR TO COLLAPSE. PORTIONS OF THE CRACK APPEARED DISCOLORED AND OLD. REVIEW OF THE AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE RECORDS REVEALED NO HISTORY OF LANDING GEAR DAMAGE OR HARD LANDING RELATED MAINTENANCE ACTIVITY. THE AIRCRAFT WAS LAST INSPECTED DURING AN ANNUAL INSPECTION 7 MONTHS AND 60 FLIGHT HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY REPORTED THAT IN RESPONSE TO CRACKS FOUND ON THE INBOARD WING RIB WEB AROUND THE SIDE BRACE FITTING, SERVICE LETTER ME76-2 WAS ISSUED ON JANUARY 5, 1976. THE LETTER DETAILS THE INSTALLATION OF A STEEL REINFORCEMENT/DOUBLER PLATE ON THE WING RIB WEB BEHIND THE LANDING GEAR SIDE BRACE FITTING. INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT REVEALED THAT SERVICE LETTER ME76-2 WAS NOT ACCOMPLISHED.
Probable cause
the failure of the wing rib web due to undetected cracking in an area of known crack development around the landing gear side brace fitting. The operator's failure to accomplish a Service Letter addressing the problem is a factor in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA232
- Event ID
- 20001207X03987
- Case number
- LAX95LA232
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1ffde5d6fb811d626a527618098af98fb3bad192c258d05bc7f0035bdc1bd550; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:42:59.442Z.