ATL93FA021 · Hawker Siddeley DH.125-400A DH.125-400
Starstuck Jet Aviation SVCS Hawker Siddeley DH.125-400A DH.125-400 · Accident: gear not extended during landing
From M33 · Gallatin, TN to Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93FA021
- 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
Hawker Siddeley DH.125-400A DH.125-400
- Aircraft type
- Hawker Siddeley DH-125
- 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
- N125HG
- Operator
- Starstuck Jet Aviation SVCS
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M33 · Gallatin, TNTo Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN), Madison, WI
- 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
- Gear not extended
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Aircraft preflight, improper
- Landing gear, nose gear assembly › Foreign object
- Landing gear, nose gear assembly › Jammed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE LANDING GEAR WAS RAISED FOLLOWING TAKEOFF, THE FLIGHT CREW HEARD A 'CRUNCHING' SOUND, FOLLOWED BY A 'NOSE GEAR UNSAFE' LIGHT. AFTER SEVERAL UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO LOWER THE GEAR, THEY ELECTED TO LAND THE AIRCRAFT AT THE NASHVILLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. THE AIRCRAFT WAS LANDED WITH THE NOSE GEAR PARTIALLY EXTENDED. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE AIRCRAFT FORWARD PRESSURE BULKHEAD WAS DAMAGED FROM CONTACT WITH THE RUNWAY SURFACE. SUBSEQUENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT A MECHANIC EMPLOYED BY THE OPERATOR HAD INADVERTENTLY LEFT A 10-INCH FLASHLIGHT IN THE UPPER SECTION OF THE NOSE GEAR WELL DURING HIS PRE-FLIGHT INSPECTION. DURING THE LANDING GEAR RETRACTION, THE NOSE GEAR BECAME JAMMED BY THE FLASHLIGHT, AND COULD NOT BE RAISED OR LOWERED.
Probable cause
THE COMPANY MECHANIC'S IMPROPER PREFLIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT, RESULTING IN A FOREIGN OBJECT (FLASHLIGHT) BEING LEFT IN THE NOSE GEAR WELL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93FA021
- Event ID
- 20001211X15980
- Case number
- ATL93FA021
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-11-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 02d0aca1010a07ed29e46413562b9dfcbaf621e5d2293fe418a29e587353376b; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:29:47.731Z.