MIA00IA128 · Dassault DA-20
Dassault DA-20 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF) to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00IA128
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Dassault DA-20
- Aircraft type
- Dassault DA-20
- 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
- N175GA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF), Louisville, KYTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), OPA LOCKA, FL
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Checklist, discontinued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the PIC, when the landing gear selector was positioned to the gear down position in preparation for landing, the landing gear did not extend and cockpit indications confirmed not down. A go around was executed and 'Procedure A' of the 'Emergency Gear Extension' checklist was executed. The result was a down and locked indication of the nose gear and the right main gear, no indication of the left gear being down, both hydraulic system quantities started decreasing, and control pressures felt in the yoke/stick indicated that the flight controls were losing their boost. The PIC elected to declare an emergency with the tower and execute a 2 gear down/1 gear up landing instead of completing the 'Procedure B' and 'Procedure C' portions of the checklist. The aircraft swerved off the left edge of the runway and sustained minor left under-wing skin scraping and a puncture to the left wing droop. Examination of the left wheel well revealed the malfunction causing the double hydraulic system leakage was the failure of two bolts attaching the hydraulic emergency slide valve to the left gear door actuating cylinder. Dassault Falcon Jet Service Bulletin FJF 32-160 dated April 26, 1984, recommends replacement of the 4-mm bolts with 5-mm bolts, to be accomplished, 'when the components are returned for major overhaul or repair, or upon request'. The incident aircraft had not undergone accomplishment of Service Bulletin FJF 32-160.
Probable cause
The failure of the PIC to execute the complete procedure for emergency extension of the landing gear and the subsequent landing with the left main landing gear not locked fully down, resulting in an excursion off the runway and collision with a runway stanchion. A factor in the incident was the fatigue failure of the left MLG door hydraulic emergency slide valve bolts due to non-compliance with a 1984 factory service bulletin that recommended replacement with larger bolts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00IA128
- Event ID
- 20001212X20875
- Case number
- MIA00IA128
- 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: 9df97598de37e7e3ec752351b1a567ba512978c6e7078b226be5125fde57ba2f; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:00:16.905Z.