MKC84LA021 · Bellanca 7ECA
Bellanca 7ECA · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Rosecrans Memorial Airport (STJ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC84LA021
- 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 7ECA
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 7
- 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
- N53842
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rosecrans Memorial Airport (STJ), ST. JOSEPH, MOTo 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 · 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
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Fatigue
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Saint Joseph, MO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT NOSED DOWN DURING LANDING AFTER THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR STRUT FAILED. THE PLT STATED THAT ON THE 2ND TOUCH- AND-GO LANDING, HE FELT A VIBRATION AND SAW THE LEFT GEAR STRUT TRAILING AT ABOUT A 45 DEGREE ANGLE. THE PLT CHOSE TO LAND ON THE GRASS BESIDE THE RWY. ON TOUCHDOWN, THE GEAR COLLAPSED AND THE ACFT NOSED DOWN. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE ATTACH BOLT, BELLANCA PN MS20007, HAD BROKEN. THE NTSB LAB FOUND THAT THE BOLT REVEALED FEATURES TYPICAL OF HIGH STRESS FATIGUE CRACKING OVER MOST OF THE FRACTURE FACE. TWO SEPARATE REGIONS OF FATIGUE CRACKING WERE NOTICEABLE ON THE FRACTURE FACE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC84LA021
- Event ID
- 20001214X45161
- Case number
- MKC84LA021
- 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: 06395a5ffe076415111651a3055f1bc3ad76704e7914aac794f5704cd5686d24; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:06:47.115Z.