LAX95LA274 · North American AT-6F
North American AT-6F · Accident: gear collapsed during landing
From Porterville Municipal Airport (PTV) to Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA274
- 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
North American AT-6F
- Aircraft type
- North American AT-6
- 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
- N3173L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Porterville Municipal Airport (PTV), Porterville, CATo Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Landing gear, gear locking mechanism › Disengaged
- Landing gear, gear locking mechanism › Shifted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE PILOT ROLLED OUT ON FINAL HE RECOGNIZED A CROSSWIND AND CRABBED INTO THE WIND ANTICIPATING A CROSSWIND LANDING. AFTER TOUCHDOWN, THE AIRCRAFT VEERED SHARPLY TO THE RIGHT AND THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED. THE AIRCRAFT THEN SLID OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY STRIKING A SIGN ON A CONCRETE BASE. THE PILOT WAS APPLYING RIGHT AILERON AND LEFT RUDDER TO COMPENSATE FOR THE CROSSWIND DURING THE LANDING. THE MECHANICAL DOWN LOCK FOR THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR WAS FOUND BROKEN AND DISPLACED. THE MECHANICAL INDICATOR FOR GEAR POSITION DID NOT SHOW THE LEFT MAIN GEAR TO BE IN THE DOWN AND LOCKED POSITION. THE BOLTS ATTACHING THE DOWN LOCK WERE NOT PROPERLY SEATED, ALLOWING THE DOWN LOCK TO SHIFT FROM ITS MOUNTED POSITION.
Probable cause
the failure of the left main landing gear locking mechanism to fully seat in the 'down' position due to loose attachment bolts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA274
- Event ID
- 20001207X04017
- Case number
- LAX95LA274
- 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: 324ec8096cab485e9da200458a1bec031e27c22678a4b35a1d2d92c959294d9b; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:32:41.242Z.