CHI91LA157 · Piper PA-34-220T
Piper PA-34-220T · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Waterloo Regional Airport (ALO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91LA157
- 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
Piper PA-34-220T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N8356B
- Operator
- Rojo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waterloo Regional Airport (ALO), Waterloo, IATo 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
- Maintenance, service bulletin/letter › Not followed
- Manufacturer › Procedure inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Eau Claire, WI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED DURING THE LANDING ROLL. THE AIRPLANE VEERED TO THE RIGHT AND THE RIGHT WING CONTACTED A RUNWAY LIGHT. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED A FATIGUE FAILURE OF THE LANDING GEAR TRUNNION ON THE LOWER FILLET OF THE WEB ON THE TRUNNION. METALLURGICAL EXAM REVEALED THE FAILURE PROPAGATED FROM GRINDING MARKS MADE DURING THE MANUFACTURING FINISHING PROCESS. A SERVICE BULLETIN WAS ISSUED IN 1985 BY THE MANUFACTURER ADDRESSING THE INSPECTION OF THIS AREA FOR CRACKS.
Probable cause
THE INADEQUATE FINISHING PROCEDURES USED BY THE MANUFACTURER AND THE FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE MANUFACTURER'S BULLETIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91LA157
- Event ID
- 20001212X16952
- Case number
- CHI91LA157
- 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: 5823088e5d872ab5d036ad3e7a58668b92fbd5cb7d90fb148cd23c5f154e496d; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:12:13.372Z.