DEN83LA219 · Cessna 320B
Cessna 320B · Accident: complete gear collapsed during landing
From Towner Municipal Airport (D61) to Minot International Airport (MOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83LA219
- 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 320B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N320RD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Towner Municipal Airport (D61), Towner, NDTo Minot International Airport (MOT), Minot, ND
- 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 · 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
- Complete 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, normal retraction/extension assembly › Inoperative
- Landing gear, nose gear assembly › Buckled
- Pilot in command › Wheels up landing, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT LANDED GEAR UP AFTER THE NORMAL AND EMERGENCY EXTENSION SYSTEMS FAILED TO EXTEND THE LANDING GEAR. DURING THE APPRAOCH TO LAND THE PLT NOTICED THE LANDING GEAR DOWN LIGHT'WOULD NOT COME ON'. A MISSED APPROACH WAS EXECUTED. THE PLTDISCUSSED THE PROBLEM VIA RADIO WITH A MECHANIC AND TRIED ALL EMERGENCY PROCEDURES TO LOWER THE NOSE GEAR WITHOUT SUCCESS. HE DIVERTED TO MANDAN VIA BISMARCK TO BURN OFF FUEL AND LAND WHERE HE COULD GET MAINTENANCE ASSISTANCE. THE PLTAND MECHANIC DECIDED THE ACFT SHOULD BE LANDED ON THE SOD WITH ALL GEAR UP AFTER ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO EXTEND THE GEAR FAILED. A FULL FLAP LANDING WAS MADE WITH ENGINES CUT PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN. THE ACFT SLID 250 FT. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT REVEALED THAT THE NOSE GEAR TORGUE TUBE WAS BUCKLED. INITIALLY IT WAS THOUGHT THAT A COOLING HOSE OR HEATER TUBE HAD INTERFERED WITH AND BUCKLED THE TUBE BY BEING IN THE WAY OF THE RETRACTION ROD. THIS WAS CONSIDERED BUT A MORE LIKELY REASON WAS OPERATION OF THE ACFT ON ROUGH TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN83LA219
- Event ID
- 20001214X44515
- Case number
- DEN83LA219
- 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: e7fb15067bc54a185a4dad8015816cda566850768a069fa6e96bc622c8fd9862; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:24:09.988Z.