SEA99LA073 · Cessna 180K
Cessna 180K · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Norman Grier Field (S36) to Bremerton National Airport (PWT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99LA073
- 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
Cessna 180K
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N2567K
- Operator
- Kenneth D. Bryant · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norman Grier Field (S36), CREST AIRPARK, WATo Bremerton National Airport (PWT)
- 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
- 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, main gear attachment › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he performed a normal wheel landing. During the landing roll, the left main gear leg failed. Post-accident inspection revealed that the attachment bolt from the gear leg broke in two pieces. During the metallurgical examination, the specialist found that three major fracture zones were present. Two of the zones were fairly flat and propagated on a plane that was perpendicular to the bolt axis, typical of fatigue progression. One of the zones was covered with heavy accumulation of oxides and corrosion deposits. The other zone was free of oxidation and deposits. The third zone displayed a fracture propagation on a 45 degree slant. This zone was typical of a final overstress separation. The fatigue zones occupied about 75 percent of the bolt cross section at the fracture location. The specialist reported that the presence of oxide and corrosion deposits suggested an 'old crack.' There was no evidence found of thread stripping. Maintenance records indicate that since the time of manufacture in 1978, the aircraft had accumulated a total time of 77 hours. During this time, there were several years in which the aircraft had not been operated.
Probable cause
Failure of the landing gear attach bolt due to fatigue failure resulting in the left main landing gear collapsing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99LA073
- Event ID
- 20001212X18897
- Case number
- SEA99LA073
- 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: b026e9da9e49b6bd52b73a17da877e1b6a36a3143b0a7cad163d11b2b65948bb; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:06:36.475Z.