ATL89LA097 · Cessna 180J
Cessna 180J · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Carroll County-Tolson Airport (TSO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA097
- 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 180J
- 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
- N601RF
- Operator
- Fox, Reese E. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carroll County-Tolson Airport (TSO), Carrollton, OHTo 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
- 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, main gear attachment › Separation
- Landing gear, main gear attachment › Stripped thread
- Landing gear, main gear attachment › Undertorqued
- Unknown › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE RT MAIN LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED AND SEPARATED FROM THE AIRPLANE DURING LDG ROLLOUT. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE AN7-20A ATTACHMENT BOLT & MS20365-720C NUT HAD STRIPPED & SEPARATED. THE BOLT EXHIBITED EVIDENCE OF HAVING BEEN LOOSE PRIOR TO THE FAILURE. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE LOGS REVEALED NO ENTRIES PERTAINING TO RT MLG MAINTENANCE, OR ANY AIRFRAME REPAIRS, WHICH WOULD HAVE REQUIRED REMOVAL & REINSTALLATION OF THE GEAR.
Probable cause
IMPROPER TORQUING OF THE ATTACHMENT BOLT DURING INSTALLATION BY UNKNOWN PERSON(S), WHICH RESULTED IN THE SEPARATION OF THE BOLT AND NUT AND SUBSEQUENT SEPARATION OF THE MAIN LANDING GEAR FROM THE AIRPLANE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA097
- Event ID
- 20001213X27832
- Case number
- ATL89LA097
- 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: 8e0e1487f8cb8cf674ea65fac756d0e052a31ed11e88409b9fa18b74caedcf5a; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:50:19.129Z.