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MIA92LA181 · Aero Commander 100

15 Sept 1992 · Panacea, FL, United States

Aero Commander 100 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure

From 40J · Perry, FL to PFN · Panama City, FL

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Event

NTSB case
MIA92LA181
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

Aero Commander 100

Aircraft type
Aero Commander 100
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
N3791X
Operator
Fragos, John · private individual
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From 40J · Perry, FLTo PFN · Panama City, FL
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
Unknown
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, steering system › Failure, total
  • Landing gear, steering system › Undetermined

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

NTSB narrative

AFTER TOUCHDOWN DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE NOSE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE ACFT NOSED OVER AND CAME TO REST INVERTED. EXAM OF THE NOSE LANDING GEAR BY AN FAA INSPECTOR REVEALED THAT THE ROD END BEARING ATTACHED TO THE SINGLE STEERING PUSH/PULL ROD, SEPARATED. THIS ALLOWED THE NOSE LANDING GEAR TO ROTATE 90 DEGREES TO THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL. THE ROD END BEARING WAS NOT LOCATED. THE PUSH/PULL ROD WAS NOT EXAMINED THEREFORE NO DETERMINATION COULD BE MADE AS TO THE REASON FOR THE FAILURE.

Probable cause

FAILURE OF THE NOSE LANDING GEAR PUSH/PULL ROD END BEARING FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA92LA181
Event ID
20001211X15753
Case number
MIA92LA181
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: 12de527dea3f4c90eef0e3deb94475d0c9fec5a6511e1f5ba05a16a351641edb; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:07:49.980Z.