ANC97LA033 · Cessna 337T
Cessna 337T · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97LA033
- 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 337T
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N922EJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)To not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear › Leak
- Landing gear, main gear › Unlocked
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on a local flight at night, but discovered the landing gear handle did not return to the neutral position within the normal time. The 'gear up' annunciator light did not illuminate. A pass near the airport tower confirmed the nose gear appeared down, the main landing gear doors were open, and the gear appeared not to be positioned normally. The pilot attempted to use the emergency hydraulic gear pump, but the pump handle broke off as he was attempting to activate the pump. The pilot contacted his maintenance provider, who recommended several options and methods to get the main gear to lock down. These were unsuccessful, and the pilot elected to land on a snow covered ski strip. The lower portion of the right vertical stabilizer and right rudder received damage when the airplane touched down in a nose high attitude. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed a leaking seal in a gear actuator.
Probable cause
a leaking landing gear actuator seal, which resulted in an inability of the landing gear to lock in the down position. Failure of the emergency gear extension handle was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97LA033
- Event ID
- 20001208X07471
- Case number
- ANC97LA033
- 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: f1af815630f1b0efb6120b7d233d2e3f1128ca1b2240ab3521a1d32e4e019a3b; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:15:15.923Z.