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LAX92LA223 · Aerospatiale TB-20

25 May 1992 · Groveland, CA, United States

Aerospatiale TB-20 · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing

From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
LAX92LA223
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

Aerospatiale TB-20

Aircraft type
Aerospatiale TB-20
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
N2824F
Operator
Paul James
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY), Monterey, CATo 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
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
Main 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 lever › Deployed inadvertently
  • Pilot in command › Gear retraction, selected

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT REPORTED THAT APPROACHING THE DESTINATION AIRPORT HE EXTENDED THE WING FLAPS, LOWERED THE LANDING GEAR AND OBSERVED THREE GREEN GEAR LIGHTS. THE AIRPLANE 'FLOATED' OVER THE 3640-FOOT LONG RUNWAY AND INITIALLY TOUCHED DOWN 800 TO 900 FEET BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. THEREAFTER, THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR PARTIALLY RETRACTED, THE WING CONTACTED THE RUNWAY'S SURFACE AND THE AIRPLANE VEERED INTO A DITCH. DURING THE EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE, THE WING FLAPS WERE FOUND IN THE RETRACTED POSITION AND THE LANDING GEAR SYSTEM FUNCTIONED NORMALLY. THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE INDICATED THAT DURING ROLLOUT THE LANDING GEAR MOTOR WAS ACTIVATED WHILE SOME WEIGHT WAS ON THE LEFT MAIN GEAR. THIS RESULTED IN A BENDING OF THE LEFT GEAR ACTUATOR ARM AND THE PARTIAL RETRACTION OF THE RIGHT GEAR. THE FLAPS WERE FOUND GROUND IMPACT DAMAGED AND RETRACTED.

Probable cause

THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT PLACEMENT OF THE LANDING GEAR SELECTOR IN THE UP POSITION DURING THE INITIAL PORTION OF THE LANDING ROLLOUT.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX92LA223
Event ID
20001211X14693
Case number
LAX92LA223
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: 5335165baa3cf25f69524836b1be7547b864a1eeae940eb349b5c6015f463e95; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:07:28.622Z.