LAX00LA303 · Bellanca 8GCBC
Bellanca 8GCBC · Accident: gear collapsed during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA303
- 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
Bellanca 8GCBC
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 8
- 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
- N8638V
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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 · 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
- 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, main gear strut › Fatigue
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The right main landing gear collapsed during the landing rollout at a private dirt glider airstrip. The pilot said that he made a 3-point landing after towing a glider aloft. The airplane bounced slightly on touchdown and, on the second ground contact, the pilot heard a snap sound and the right main landing gear collapsed. The airplane fell down on the right wing and spun around in the dirt. An FAA airworthiness inspector examined the airplane and the runway. The inspector observed the two touchdown markings on the dirt runway and reported that they were about 12-feet apart and not heavy impressions. About 20 feet beyond the second touchdown point, drag markings consistent with a separated main landing gear were found. The inspector reported that the right main landing gear strut separated near the fuselage with a transverse fracture. A majority of the fracture face appeared dirty and rusty, with the remaining portion exhibiting a pattern of beach markings and a chevron-like pattern near the edge opposite the discolored portion. According to the operator, this airplane has been used exclusively for glider tow operations and has accumulated over 4,000 flight hours. The operator and the FAA inspector estimated the total number of landing cycles somewhere between 15,000 and 16,000 for the life of the part.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure and separation of the right main landing gear.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA303
- Event ID
- 20001212X21775
- Case number
- LAX00LA303
- 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: de9584559539d77a59b155e6518bbfbbd4f47bb85b59f36d0fbb466ad1766358; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:35:10.895Z.