CHI91LA064 · Cessna 320E
Cessna 320E · Accident: gear not retracted during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Mishawaka Pilots Club Airport (3C1)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91LA064
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 320E
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N4695X
- Operator
- Warner, Jack E. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Mishawaka Pilots Club Airport (3C1), IN
- 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
- Gear not retracted
- 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, normal retraction/extension assembly › Fractured
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Elkhart, IN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A PILOT EXPERIENCED A HUNG NOSE GEAR ON RETRACTION AFTER TAKEOFF. NORMAL AND MANUAL ATTEMPTS TO EXTEND THE NOSE GEAR FAILED. WHILE CYCLING THE GEAR, THE PILOT EXPERIENCED POWER LOSS TWICE ON THE LEFT ENGINE, AND THE RIGHT ENGINE HESITATED ONCE. ADJUSTMENT OF THE FUEL SELECTOR HANDLES RECOVERED THE ENGINES. THE PILOT CONTINUED TO FINAL APPROACH CONFIGURED FOR LANDING WITH DEFECTIVE GEAR, WITH FULL FLAPS AND MAIN GEAR DOWN. THE PILOT RECOUNTED HE HAD NO POWER RESPONSE FROM EITHER ENGINE BELOW 400 FEET ON FINAL. HE INCREASED HIS DESCENT ANGLE TO MAINTAIN 100 MPH BUT HAD INSUFFICIENT SPEED TO FLARE FOR TOUCHDOWN. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE SHOWED THE CAM ROLLER WHICH CENTERS THE NOSE WHEEL ON RETRACTION HAD FRACTURED, AND THE NOSE GEAR DRIVE TUBE BUCKLED AND FRACTURED WHERE FUEL SELECTOR HANDLES ATTACH TO CABLES TO SELECTOR VALVES.
Probable cause
A FRACTURED LANDING GEAR RETRACTION ASSEMBLY COMPONENT AND THE PILOT'S IMPROPER EMERGENCY PROCEDURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91LA064
- Event ID
- 20001212X16282
- Case number
- CHI91LA064
- 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: 8ad775b4cc3f2e9d67abaf6e7fbf6f91f08c20e5a7cd18982218c4fc9a1512c4; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:40:42.293Z.