NYC91LA248 · Fairchild SW3
Jet Express Fairchild SW3 · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA248
- 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
Fairchild SW3
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild SW3
- 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
- N159MC
- Operator
- Jet Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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 locking mechanism › Failure, total
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, modification, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Atlantic City, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ON RUNWAY 31. UPON TOUCHDOWN, THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE AIRPLANE VEERED OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRPLANE HAD RECENTLY UNDERGONE A MODIFICATION TO INCREASE ITS GROSS OPERATING WEIGHT FROM 14,500 TO 16,000 POUNDS. IT WAS FOUND THAT BOTH ACTUATOR POSITIONING CAMS HAD BEEN GROUND DOWN AT THE DOWN LOCK LOBES. REMOVAL OF MATERIAL FROM THE CAMS IS NOT AUTHORIZED ON THIS AIRPLANE. BOTH RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR DOWN LOCK ROLLER BEARING OUTER RACES HAD FAILED. THE FAA FOUND ONE BEARING IN PIECES ON THE RUNWAY, AND THE OTHER WAS NOT RECOVERED.
Probable cause
A FAILURE OF THE DOWN LOCK ROLLER BEARINGS OF THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR, AS THE RESULT OF AN IMPROPER MODIFICATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA248
- Event ID
- 20001212X18178
- Case number
- NYC91LA248
- 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 1991-09-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ee5fb21c6ea9d9653920dcf30c583a4a8ca49c31dc8a7ec6e7c5b6f26a8fd565; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:38:59.391Z.