Blue Bell Canadair CL44D4 accident
Canadair CL44D4 · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From MJBQ · Aguadilla, PR to Worcester Regional Airport (ORH)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84FA064
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Canadair CL44D4
- Aircraft type
- Canadair CL44
- 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
- N104BB
- Operator
- Blue Bell
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MJBQ · Aguadilla, PRTo Worcester Regional Airport (ORH), Worcester, MA
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hydraulic system, line › Failure, total
- Landing gear, emergency extension assembly › Inoperative
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Inoperative
- Pilot in command › Wheels up landing, performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of East Boston, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT LANDED WITH THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR IN THE RETRACTED POSITION. THE CREW WAS UNABLE TO LOWER THE RIGHT MAIN GEAR BY THE NORMAL OR EMERGENCY METHODS. INSPECTION AFTER THE ACCIDENT REVEALED THAT THE MAIN HYDRAULIC LINE. PN 44-75087-98 WAS BROKEN COMPLETELY AROUND ITS CIRCUMFERENCE UNDER THE 'B' NUT AT THE BULKHEAD FITTING WHERE THE LINE ENTERS THE H2 ENGINE NACELLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84FA064
- Event ID
- 20001214X38649
- Case number
- NYC84FA064
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1984-01-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3f4d91d5c115d174346cda70c0d6c956c652151af65aeac43fae682e76605e97; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:45:57.106Z.