Pal-Waukee Aviation Canadair CL-600S accident
Canadair CL-600S · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From General Mitchell International Airport (MKE) to Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96LA073
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Canadair CL-600S
- Aircraft type
- Canadair CL-600
- 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
- N999TF
- Operator
- Pal-Waukee Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General Mitchell International Airport (MKE), Milwaukee, WITo Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU)
- 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
- 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
- Flightcrew › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Flightcrew › Gear down and locked, not attained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Raleigh, NC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
During an instrument landing system (ILS) approach the airline transport pilot noticed a discrepancy in the landing gear indicators. He raised the landing gear and lowered it again. The main landing gear indicator lights were illuminated, indicating that the main gear was extended and locked, but the nose gear light was extinguished. The light in the gear handle was off, indicating that the system was functioning properly. The pilot did not use the emergency landing gear extension system. The aircraft was landed, and the nose gear collapsed. Subsequent examination revealed an intermittently operating extend solenoid in the nose gear selector valve.
Probable cause
the flight crew's inadequate emergency procedure in that they did not manually extend the landing gear, as specified in the airplane flight manual. A factor relating to the accident was: the intermittent operation of the extend solenoid in the nose gear selector valve.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96LA073
- Event ID
- 20001208X05511
- Case number
- ATL96LA073
- 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: 601f59e20876c298d9464b8f7510dfcede1a7615c35ab90e3ebd94df5ee0c247; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:52:16.452Z.