Transportation America Mitsubishi MU2B-20 accident
Mitsubishi MU2B-20 · Accident: gear not extended during landing
From Nashville International Airport (BNA) to Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90LA053
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Mitsubishi MU2B-20
- Aircraft type
- Mitsubishi MU2
- 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
- N40RP
- Operator
- Transportation America
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nashville International Airport (BNA)To Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TN
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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 not extended
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, adjustment, inadequate
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Jammed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER ARRIVING AT THE DESTINATION THE LANDING GEAR COULD NOT BE EXTENDED. THE AIRPLANE WAS FLOWN BACK TO ITS BASE WHERE A GEAR UP LANDING WAS PERFORMED. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT THE LEFT GEAR DOOR DID NOT UNLOCK. THE EMERGENCY EXTENSION SYSTEM FAILED TO OPERATE AS A RESULT OF EITHER THE FAILURE OF THE CLUTCH ACTUATOR TO RESET AFTER THE LAST RETRACTION OR SLIPPAGE OF THE CLUTCH. THE PILOT'S REPORT STATED THAT THE DIRECTOR OF MAINTENANCE INDICATED THAT THE ACCIDENT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED BY MORE FREQUENT LUBRICATION OF THE CLUTCH.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE ADJUSTMENT OF THE LANDING GEAR SYSTEM WHICH RESULTED IN THE JAMMING OF THE LEFT GEAR DOOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90LA053
- Event ID
- 20001212X22369
- Case number
- ATL90LA053
- 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: bafcf9f365f4f1a5b913ab86efcdda20062bc2c39fa3ad4c355a38697858eed3; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:05:17.626Z.