SEA96LA140 · Piper PA-31
Piper PA-31 · Accident: nose gear collapsed during landing
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to Jackson Hole Airport (JAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA140
- 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
Piper PA-31
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N27518
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo Jackson Hole Airport (JAC)
- 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
- 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
- Nose 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
- Unknown › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a normal landing, the aircraft's nose gear collapsed. The pilots stated that three green indicator lights were observed during the final landing checklist. In postaccident troubleshooting, an instrument panel mounting screw which was too long was discovered. This screw was obstructing the movement of the landing gear selector handle to a full down position, allowing it to return prematurely to neutral (which removes hydraulic pressure from the gear system.) The nose gear was thus not hydraulically moved over center and was unlocked, even though the nose gear indicated down and locked in this configuration. Per the aircraft service manual, the nose gear linkage incorporates a downlock spring, and both gear linkage overcenter travel and gear down limit switch position are adjustable. It was not determined whether, or when, these items were checked or adjusted before the accident. After the proper screw was installed in the instrument panel, the gear operated properly in retraction tests.
Probable cause
An improper screw installation by an unknown individual into the instrument panel, which restricted movement of the gear handle resulting in premature disengagement of the normal landing gear extension system. A factor was one or more improperly adjusted nose gear system components, which resulted in an unlocked nose gear that falsely indicated down and locked.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA140
- Event ID
- 20001208X06358
- Case number
- SEA96LA140
- 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: f1eae7a356ea60c25f6dbd172ef012bd19ae1e31a8ace0791e79fd3deabf6311; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:49:01.935Z.